Assessing LNRF, FR, and AHP models in landslide susceptibility mapping index: a comparative study of Nojian watershed in Lorestan province, Iran

Landslides and slope instabilities are major risks for human activities which often lead to economic losses and human fatalities all over the world. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate and compare the results of Landslide Nominal Risk Factor (LNRF), Frequency Ratio (FR), and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) models in mapping Landslide Susceptibility Index (LSI). The study case, Nojian watershed with an area of 344.91 km(2), is located in Lorestan province of Iran. The procedure was as follows: first, the effective factors of the landslide basin were prepared for each layer in the GIS software. Then, the layers and the landslides of the basin were also prepared using aerial photographs, satellite images, and fieldwork. Next, the effective factors of the layers were overlapped with the map of landslide distribution to specify the role of units in such distribution. Finally, nine factors including lithology, slope, aspect, altitude, distance from the fault, distance from river, fault land use, rainfall, and altitude were found to be effective elements in landslide occurrence of the basin. The final maps of LSI were prepared based on seven factors using LNRF, FR, and AHP models in GIS. The index of the quality sum (Qs) was also used to assess the accuracy of the LSI maps. The results of the three models with LNRF (40%), FR (39%), and AHP (44%) indicated that the whole study area was located in the classes of high to very high hazard. The Qs values for the three models above were also found to be 0.51, 0.70 and 0.70, respectively. In comparison, according to the amount of Qs, the results of AHP and FR models have slightly better performed than the LNRF model in determining the LSI maps in the study area. Finally, the study watershed was classified into five classes based on LSI as very low, low, moderate, high, and very high. The landslide susceptibility maps can be helpful to select sites and mitigate landslide hazards in the study area and the regions with similar conditions.