Evaluation of environmental parameters in logistic regression models for landslide susceptibility mapping

The aim of this study was to determine how well the landslide susceptibility parameters, obtained by data-dependent statistical models, matched with the parameters used in the literature. In order to achieve this goal, 20 different environmental parameters were mapped in a well-studied landslide-prone area, the Asarsuyu catchment in northwest Turkey. A total of 4400 seed cells were generated from 47 different landslides and merged with different attributes of 20 different environmental causative variables into a database. In order to run a series of logistic regression models, different random landslide-free sample sets were produced and combined with seed cells. Different susceptibility maps were created with an average success rate of nearly 80%. The coherence among the models showed spatial correlations greater than 90%. Models converged in the parameter selection peculiarly, in that the same nine of 20 were chosen by different logistic regression models. Among these nine parameters, lithology, geological structure (distance/density), landcover-landuse, and slope angle were common parameters selected by both the regression models and literature. Accuracy assessment of the logistic models was assessed by absolute methods. All models were field checked with the landslides resulting from the 12 November 1999, Kaynasli Earthquake (Ms = 7.2).