Landslide susceptibility mapping with the fusion of multi-feature SVM model based FCM sampling strategy: A case study from Shaanxi Province

The quality of “non-landslide’ samples data impacts the accuracy of geological hazard risk assessment. This research proposed a method to improve the performance of support vector machine (SVM) by perfecting the quality of ‘non-landslide’ samples in the landslide susceptibility evaluation model through fuzzy c-means (FCM) cluster to generate more reliable susceptibility maps. Firstly, three sample selection scenarios for ‘non-landslide’ samples include the following principles: 1) select randomly from low-slope areas (scenario-SS), 2) select randomly from areas with no hazards (scenario-RS), 3) obtain samples from the optimal FCM model (scenario-FCM), and then three sample scenarios are constructed with 10,193 landslide positive samples. Next, we have compared and evaluated the performance of three sample scenarios in the SVM models based on the statistical indicators such as the proportion of disaster points, density of disaster points precision, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, and area under the ROC curve (AUC). Finally, The evaluation results show that the ‘non-landslide’ negative samples based on the FCM model are more reasonable. Furthermore, the hybrid method supported by SVM and FCM models exhibits the highest prediction efficiency. Scenario FCM produces an overall accuracy of approximately 89.7% (AUC), followed by scenario-SS (86.7%) and scenario-RS (85.6%).