GIS-based ordered weighted averaging and Dempster-Shafer methods for landslide susceptibility mapping in the Urmia Lake Basin, Iran

In this paper, GIS-based ordered weighted averaging (OWA) is applied to landslide susceptibility mapping (LSM) for the Urmia Lake Basin in northwest Iran. Nine landslide causal factors were used, whereby the respective parameters were extracted from an associated spatial database. These factors were evaluated, and then the respective factor weight and class weight were assigned to each of the associated factors using analytic hierarchy process (AHP). A landslide susceptibility map was produced based on OWA multicriteria decision analysis. In order to validate the result, the outcome of the OWA method was qualitatively evaluated based on an existing inventory of known landslides. Correspondingly, an uncertainty analysis was carried out using the Dempster-Shafer theory. Based on the results, very strong support was determined for the high susceptibility category of the landslide susceptibility map, while strong support was received for the areas with moderate susceptibility. In this paper, we discuss in which respect these results are useful for an improved understanding of the effectiveness of OWA in LSM, and how the landslide prediction map can be used for spatial planning tasks and for the mitigation of future hazards in the study area.