Vulnerability of coastal communities to climate change: Thirty-year trend analysis and prospective prediction for the coastal regions of the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.

This study relates changes in social vulnerability of 20 counties on the northern coasts of the Persian Gulf (PG) and the Gulf of Oman (GO) over a 30-year period (1988-2017) to changing socio-economic conditions and environmental (climate) hazard. Social vulnerability in 2030, 2040 and 2050 is predicted based on the RCP8.5 climate change scenario that projects drought intensities and rising sea levels. Social vulnerability was based on the three dimensions of sensitivity, exposure, and adaptive capacity using 18 socio-economic and five climate indicators identified by experts. All but one indicator related very strongly to the dimension it sought to represent. Despite improvements in adaptive capacity over time, social vulnerability increased between 1988 and 2017 and rates of change accelerated after change point years that occurred between 1998 and 2002 in most counties. Extrapolating past changes of each indicator over time enabled forecasts of social vulnerability in the future. While social variability decreased between 2017 and 2030, it increased again between 2030 and 2050. The lowest future social vulnerability is expected along the eastern PG coast, the greatest along the western PG and the GO. The worsening of socio-economic indicators contributed to increased sensitivity, and increased drought intensities plus the expected rise in sea levels will lead to social vulnerabilities in 2050 comparable to present levels. Between 1.4 and 1.7 M people will live in areas that are likely submerged by water in the future. About 80% of these people live in six counties with variable social vulnerabilities. While counties with lower social variabilities might be better able to cope with the challenges posed by climate change, adaptation programs to enhance the resilience of the residents in these and the remaining counties along the PG and the GO need to be implemented soon to avoid uncontrolled mass migration of millions of people from the region.

Development of novel hybridized models for urban flood susceptibility mapping.

Floods in urban environments often result in loss of life and destruction of property, with many negative socio-economic effects. However, the application of most flood prediction models still remains challenging due to data scarcity. This creates a need to develop novel hybridized models based on historical urban flood events, using, e.g., metaheuristic optimization algorithms and wavelet analysis. The hybridized models examined in this study (Wavelet-SVR-Bat and Wavelet-SVR-GWO), designed as intelligent systems, consist of a support vector regression (SVR), integrated with a combination of wavelet transform and metaheuristic optimization algorithms, including the grey wolf optimizer (GWO), and the bat optimizer (Bat). The efficiency of the novel hybridized and standalone SVR models for spatial modeling of urban flood inundation was evaluated using different cutoff-dependent and cutoff-independent evaluation criteria, including area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), Accuracy (A), Matthews Correlation Coefficient (MCC), Misclassification Rate (MR), and F-score. The results demonstrated that both hybridized models had very high performance (Wavelet-SVR-GWO: AUC = 0.981, A = 0.92, MCC = 0.86, MR = 0.07; Wavelet-SVR-Bat: AUC = 0.972, A = 0.88, MCC = 0.76, MR = 0.11) compared with the standalone SVR (AUC = 0.917, A = 0.85, MCC = 0.7, MR = 0.15). Therefore, these hybridized models are a promising, cost-effective method for spatial modeling of urban flood susceptibility and for providing in-depth insights to guide flood preparedness and emergency response services.

Identifying sources of dust aerosol using a new framework based on remote sensing and modelling.

Dust particles are transported globally. Dust storms can adversely impact both human health and the environment, but they also impact transportation infrastructure, agriculture, and industry, occasionally severely. The identification of the locations that are the primary sources of dust, especially in arid and semi-arid environments, remains a challenge as these sites are often in remote or data-scarce regions. In this study, a new method using state-of-the-art machine-learning algorithms - random forest (RF), support vector machines (SVM), and multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) - was evaluated for its ability to spatially model the distribution of dust-source potential in eastern Iran. To accomplish this, empirically identified dust-source locations were determined with the ozone monitoring instrument aerosol index and the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Deep Blue aerosol optical thickness methods. The identified areas were divided into training (70%) and validation (30%) sets. Measurements of the conditioning factors (lithology, wind speed, maximum air temperature, land use, slope angle, soil, rainfall, and land cover) were compiled for the study area and predictive models were developed. The area-under-the-receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC) and true-skill statistics (TSS) were used to validate the maps of the models' predictions. The results show that the RF algorithm performed best (AUC = 89.4% and TSS = 0.751), followed by the SVM (AUC = 87.5%, TSS = 0.73) and the MARS algorithm (AUC = 81%, TSS = 0.69). The results of the RF indicated that wind speed and land cover are the most important factors affecting dust generation. The region of highest dust-source potential that was identified by the RF is in the eastern parts of the study region. This model can be applied to other arid and semi-arid environments that experience dust storms to promote management that prevents desertification and reduces dust production.

Spatial modeling of exposure of mangrove ecosystems to multiple environmental hazards.

Determining the level of ecosystems exposure to multiple environmental hazards or risk factors is of paramount importance for developing, adopting, and planning management strategies to minimize the harmful effects of these hazards. We quantified the level of exposure of mangroves on the northern coasts of the Persian Gulf (PG) and the Gulf of Oman (GO) between 1986 and 2019 to eight environmental hazards, i.e., drought, maximum temperatures, rising sea levels, change of freshwater inflows to coasts, extreme storm surges, significant wave height (SWH), seaward edge retreat in the mangroves, and fishery intensity. Based on expert opinion, fuzzy weights were used to integrate these exposures into a single index (EI) for the region. Experts gave the greatest weight/importance to the risks posed by sea-level rise and seaward retreat of mangroves and the lowest risk to significant wave height and fishery intensity in coastal waters. The overall EI and six of eight individual variables (except fishery intensity and maximum temperatures) pointed to exposure levels of mangroves that increased from the coasts of the PG (EI 0.69) to the GO (EI 6.69). Since these hazards are expected to continue in the future, local/regional management responses should focus on minimizing regional anthropogenic threats and halt conversion of natural areas to agricultural and open areas to maintain freshwater inputs to coastal areas, particularly on the GO. Further, uplands that may serve as future refugia into which mangroves may expand over time as sea levels continue to rise should be protected from development. This was the first study that used an analytic framework to compute a mangrove exposure index to a suite of physical and socio-economic hazards across a region. This framework may provide insights into cost-effective resilience-based design and management of socio-ecologically coupled ecosystems in an era of increasing types and intensities of environmental hazards.

Analysis of Outbreak and Global Impacts of the COVID-19.

Corona viruses are a large family of viruses that are not only restricted to causing illness in humans but also affect animals such as camels, cattle, cats, and bats, thus affecting a large group of living species. The outbreak of Corona virus in late December 2019 (also known as COVID-19) raised major concerns when the outbreak started getting tremendous. While the first case was discovered in Wuhan, China, it did not take long for the disease to travel across the globe and infect every continent (except Antarctica), killing thousands of people. Since it has become a global concern, different countries have been working toward the treatment and generation of vaccine, leading to different speculations. While some argue that the vaccine may only be a few weeks away, others believe that it may take some time to create the vaccine. Given the increasing number of deaths, the COVID-19 has caused havoc worldwide and is a matter of serious concern. Thus, there is a need to study how the disease has been propagating across continents by numbers as well as by regions. This study incorporates a detailed description of how the COVID-19 outbreak started in China and managed to spread across the globe rapidly. We take into account the COVID-19 outbreak cases (confirmed, recovered, death) in order to make some observations regarding the pandemic. Given the detailed description of the outbreak, this study would be beneficial to certain industries that may be affected by the outbreak in order to take timely precautionary measures in the future. Further, the study lists some industries that have witnessed the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on a global scale.

Machine Learning-Based Gully Erosion Susceptibility Mapping: A Case Study of Eastern India.

Gully erosion is a form of natural disaster and one of the land loss mechanisms causing severe problems worldwide. This study aims to delineate the areas with the most severe gully erosion susceptibility (GES) using the machine learning techniques Random Forest (RF), Gradient Boosted Regression Tree (GBRT), Naïve Bayes Tree (NBT), and Tree Ensemble (TE). The gully inventory map (GIM) consists of 120 gullies. Of the 120 gullies, 84 gullies (70%) were used for training and 36 gullies (30%) were used to validate the models. Fourteen gully conditioning factors (GCFs) were used for GES modeling and the relationships between the GCFs and gully erosion was assessed using the weight-of-evidence (WofE) model. The GES maps were prepared using RF, GBRT, NBT, and TE and were validated using area under the receiver operating characteristic(AUROC) curve, the seed cell area index (SCAI) and five statistical measures including precision (PPV), false discovery rate (FDR), accuracy, mean absolute error (MAE), and root mean squared error (RMSE). Nearly 7% of the basin has high to very high susceptibility for gully erosion. Validation results proved the excellent ability of these models to predict the GES. Of the analyzed models, the RF (AUROC = 0.96, PPV = 1.00, FDR = 0.00, accuracy = 0.87, MAE = 0.11, RMSE = 0.19 for validation dataset) is accurate enough for modeling and better suited for GES modeling than the other models. Therefore, the RF model can be used to model the GES areas not only in this river basin but also in other areas with the same geo-environmental conditions.

Identification of areas prone to flash-flood phenomena using multiple-criteria decision-making, bivariate statistics, machine learning and their ensembles.

Taking into account the exponential growth of the number of flash-floods events worldwide, the detection of areas prone to these natural hazards is one of the main activities taken in order to mitigate the negative effects of these risk phenomena. In the present paper, new modeling approaches, Alternating Decision Tree (ADT) integrated with IOE (ADT-IOE) and ADT integrated with AHP (ADT-AHP), were proposed for flash-flood susceptibility mapping across the Suha river catchment (Romania). Besides, two stand-alone methods, Index of Entropy (IOE) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), were also investigated. For this regard, 111 torrential points and 111 non-torrential points along with 8 flash-flood conditioning factors have been involved in the training process of the four models. The quality of the flash-flood models was checked by using the ROC Curve method, classification accuracy (CLA), and Kappa index. The result shows that the two ensemble models, the ADT-IOE (AUC = 0.972, CLC = 86.37%, Kappa statistics = 0.727) and the ADT-AHP (AUC = 0.926, CLA = 87.88%, Kappa statistics = 0.758), have high prediction performance and outperform the other models. Therefore, ADT-IOE and ADT-AHP are new and promising tools for flash-flood susceptibility modeling.

Capability and robustness of novel hybridized models used for drought hazard modeling in southeast Queensland, Australia.

Widespread detrimental and long-lasting droughts are having catastrophic impacts around the globe. Researchers, organizations, and policy makers need to work together to obtain precise information, enabling timely and accurate decision making to mitigate drought impacts. In this study, a spatial modeling approach based on an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and several metaheuristic optimizations (ANFIS-BA, ANFIS-GA, ANFIS-ICA, ANFIS-PSO) was developed to predict the spatial occurrence of drought in a region in southeastern Queensland, Australia. In this approach, data describing the distribution of eight drought-contributing factors were prepared for input into the models to serve as independent variables. Relative departures of rainfall (RDR) and relative departures of soil moisture (RDSM) were analyzed to identify locations where drought conditions have occurred. The set of locations in the study area identified as having experienced drought conditions was randomly divided into two groups, 70% were used for training and 30% for validation. The models employed these data to generate maps that predict the locations that would be expected to experience drought. The prediction accuracy of the model-produced drought maps was scrutinized with two evaluation metrics: area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and root mean square error (RMSE). The results demonstrate that the hybridized models (ANFIS-BA (AUCmean = 83.7%, RMSEmean = 0.236), ANFIS-GA (AUCmean = 81.62%, RMSEmean = 0.247), ANFIS-ICA (AUCmean = 82.12%, RMSEmean = 0.247), and ANFIS-PSO (AUCmean = 81.42%, RMSEmean = 0.255)) yield better predictive performance than the standalone ANFIS model (AUCmean = 71.8%, RMSEmean = 0.344). Furthermore, sensitivity analyses indicated that plant-available water capacity, the percentage of soil comprised of sand, and mean annual precipitation were the most important predictors of drought hazard. The versatility of the new approach for spatial drought modeling and the capacity of ANFIS model hybridization to improve model performance suggests great potential to assist decision makers in their formulations of drought risk, recovery, and response management, and in the development of contingency plans.

A novel deep learning neural network approach for predicting flash flood susceptibility: A case study at a high frequency tropical storm area.

This research proposes and evaluates a new approach for flash flood susceptibility mapping based on Deep Learning Neural Network (DLNN)) algorithm, with a case study at a high-frequency tropical storm area in the northwest mountainous region of Vietnam. Accordingly, a DLNN structure with 192 neurons in 3 hidden layers was proposed to construct an inference model that predicts different levels of susceptibility to flash flood. The Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) and the sigmoid were selected as the activate function and the transfer function, respectively, whereas the Adaptive moment estimation (Adam) was used to update and optimize the weights of the DLNN. A database for the study area, which includes factors of elevation, slope, curvature, aspect, stream density, NDVI, soil type, lithology, and rainfall, was established to train and validate the proposed model. Feature selection was carried out for these factors using the Information gain ratio. The results show that the DLNN attains a good prediction accuracy with Classification Accuracy Rate = 92.05%, Positive Predictive Value = 94.55% and Negative Predictive Value = 89.55%. Compared to benchmarks, Multilayer Perceptron Neural Network and Support Vector Machine, the DLNN performs better; therefore, it could be concluded that the proposed hybridization of GIS and deep learning can be a promising tool to assist the government authorities and involving parties in flash flood mitigation and land-use planning.

Spatial Landslide Susceptibility Assessment Based on Novel Neural-Metaheuristic Geographic Information System Based Ensembles.

Regular optimization techniques have been widely used in landslide-related problems. This paper outlines two novel optimizations of artificial neural network (ANN) using grey wolf optimization (GWO) and biogeography-based optimization (BBO) metaheuristic algorithms in the Ardabil province, Iran. To this end, these algorithms are synthesized with a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural network for optimizing its computational parameters. The used spatial database consists of fourteen landslide conditioning factors, namely elevation, slope aspect, land use, plan curvature, profile curvature, soil type, distance to river, distance to road, distance to fault, rainfall, slope degree, stream power index (SPI), topographic wetness index (TWI) and lithology. 70% of the identified landslides are randomly selected to train the proposed models and the remaining 30% is used to evaluate the accuracy of them. Also, the frequency ratio theory is used to analyze the spatial interaction between the landslide and conditioning factors. Obtained values of area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, as well as mean square error and mean absolute error showed that both GWO and BBO hybrid algorithms could efficiently improve the learning capability of the MLP. Besides, the BBO-based ensemble surpasses other implemented models.

Slope Stability Monitoring Using Novel Remote Sensing Based Fuzzy Logic.

By the assist of remotely sensed data, this study examines the viability of slope stability monitoring using two novel conventional models. The proposed models are considered to be the combination of neuro-fuzzy (NF) system along with invasive weed optimization (IWO) and elephant herding optimization (EHO) evolutionary techniques. Considering the conditioning factors of land use, lithology, soil type, rainfall, distance to the road, distance to the river, slope degree, elevation, slope aspect, profile curvature, plan curvature, stream power index (SPI), and topographic wetness index (TWI), it is aimed to achieve a reliable approximation of landslide occurrence likelihood for unseen environmental conditions. To this end, after training the proposed EHO-NF and IWO-NF ensembles using training landslide events, their generalization power is evaluated by receiving operating characteristic curves. The results demonstrated around 75% accuracy of prediction for both models; however, the IWO-NF achieved a better understanding of landslide distribution pattern. Due to the successful performance of the implemented models, they could be promising alternatives to mathematical and analytical approaches being used for discerning the relationship between the slope failure and environmental parameters.

Multi-hazards vulnerability assessment of southern coasts of Iran.

Coastal vulnerability assessment has become one of the most important tools for decision making and providing effective managerial solutions to reduce adverse socio-economic impacts of multiple environmental hazards on coupled social-ecological systems of coastal areas. The aim of this study was to assess the vulnerability of the northern coasts of the Persian Gulf (PG) and the Gulf of Oman (GO) in the Hormozgan province of Iran. Nine variables of vulnerability that included the rate of coastline change, relative sea level rise, coastal slope, mean tidal range, coastal geomorphology, significant wave height (SWH), extreme storm surge, population density, and fishing intensity were weighted, mapped, and combined into the Coastal vulnerability index (CVI). Experts viewed sea level rise, shoreline change and extreme storm surge as most important for imparting vulnerabilities on the northern coasts of PG and GO. Socio-economic variables (i.e., population density and fishery intensity) were considered least important. Of the total length of the provincial shoreline, 27% were classified into the very low vulnerability class, 31% into the low, 17.4% into the moderate, 15.4% into the high, and 9.2% into the very high vulnerability class. About 1295 km (58%) of shorelines were classified into the low and very low vulnerability classes (CVI value ≤ 8.32) and mainly consisted of shorelines on the western coast along the PG. In contrast, 553 km (24.6%) of shorelines were classified into the high and very high vulnerability classes (CVI values > 13.39) and were located along the central coasts (especially in the Qeshm Island and Strait of Hormuz) and on the east coasts of the GO. At least a quarter of all shorelines in the province have high and very high vulnerability to environmental hazards that are the harbingers of climate change.

Spatial prediction of flood potential using new ensembles of bivariate statistics and artificial intelligence: A case study at the Putna river catchment of Romania.

Flash-flood is considered to be one of the most destructive natural hazards in the world, which is difficult to accurately model and predict. The objective of the present research is to propose new ensembles of bivariate statistics and artificial intelligences and to introduce a comprehensive methodology for predicting flood susceptibility. The Putna river catchment of Romania is selected as a case study. In this regard, a total of six ensemble models were proposed and verified: Multilayer Perceptron neural network-Frequency Ratio (MLP-FR), Multilayer Perceptron neural network -Weights of Evidence (MLP-WOE), Rotation Forest-Frequency Ratio (RF-FR), Rotation Forest-Weights of Evidence (RF-WOE), Classification and Regression Tree-Frequency Ratio (CART-FR), and Classification and Regression Tree-Weights of Evidence (CART-WOE). In a first step, a geospatial database was created for the study area. This database includes 132 flood locations and 14 conditioning factors (lithology, slope angle, plan curvature, hydrological soil group, topographic wetness index, landuse, convergence index, elevation, distance from river, profile curvature, rainfall, aspect, stream power index, and topographic position index). In the next step, the Information Gain Ratio was used to evaluate the predictive ability of these factors. Subsequently, the database was used to train and validate the six ensemble models. The Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, area under the curve (AUC), and statistical measures were used to evaluate the performance of the models. The results show that the prediction capability of the proposed ensemble models varied from 86.8% (the RF-FR model) to 93.9% (the RF-WOE model). These values indicate a high prediction performance for all the models. Therefore, we can state that the proposed ensemble models are new reliable tools which can be used for flood susceptibility modelling.

Prediction of Pullout Behavior of Belled Piles through Various Machine Learning Modelling Techniques.

The main goal of this study is to estimate the pullout forces by developing various modelling technique like feedforward neural network (FFNN), radial basis functions neural networks (RBNN), general regression neural network (GRNN) and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). A hybrid learning algorithm, including a back-propagation and least square estimation, is utilized to train ANFIS in MATLAB (software). Accordingly, 432 samples have been applied, through which 300 samples have been considered as training dataset with 132 ones for testing dataset. All results have been analyzed by ANFIS, in which the reliability has been confirmed through the comparing of the results. Consequently, regarding FFNN, RBNN, GRNN, and ANFIS, statistical indexes of coefficient of determination (R2), variance account for (VAF) and root mean square error (RMSE) in the values of (0.957, 0.968, 0.939, 0.902, 0.998), (95.677, 96.814, 93.884, 90.131, 97.442) and (2.176, 1.608, 3.001, 4.39, 0.058) have been achieved for training datasets and the values of (0.951, 0.913, 0.729, 0.685 and 0.995), (95.04, 91.13, 72.745, 66.228, 96.247) and (2.433, 4.032, 8.005, 10.188 and 1.252) are for testing datasets indicating a satisfied reliability of ANFIS in estimating of pullout behavior of belled piles.

Predicting uncertainty of machine learning models for modelling nitrate pollution of groundwater using quantile regression and UNEEC methods.

Although estimating the uncertainty of models used for modelling nitrate contamination of groundwater is essential in groundwater management, it has been generally ignored. This issue motivates this research to explore the predictive uncertainty of machine-learning (ML) models in this field of study using two different residuals uncertainty methods: quantile regression (QR) and uncertainty estimation based on local errors and clustering (UNEEC). Prediction-interval coverage probability (PICP), the most important of the statistical measures of uncertainty, was used to evaluate uncertainty. Additionally, three state-of-the-art ML models including support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), and k-nearest neighbor (kNN) were selected to spatially model groundwater nitrate concentrations. The models were calibrated with nitrate concentrations from 80 wells (70% of the data) and then validated with nitrate concentrations from 34 wells (30% of the data). Both uncertainty and predictive performance criteria should be considered when comparing and selecting the best model. Results highlight that the kNN model is the best model because not only did it have the lowest uncertainty based on the PICP statistic in both the QR (0.94) and the UNEEC (in all clusters, 0.85-0.91) methods, but it also had predictive performance statistics (RMSE = 10.63, R2 = 0.71) that were relatively similar to RF (RMSE = 10.41, R2 = 0.72) and higher than SVM (RMSE = 13.28, R2 = 0.58). Determining the uncertainty of ML models used for spatially modelling groundwater-nitrate pollution enables managers to achieve better risk-based decision making and consequently increases the reliability and credibility of groundwater-nitrate predictions.

Novel ensembles of COPRAS multi-criteria decision-making with logistic regression, boosted regression tree, and random forest for spatial prediction of gully erosion susceptibility.

Gully erosion is considered as a severe environmental problem in many areas of the world which causes huge damages to agricultural lands and infrastructures (i.e. roads, buildings, and bridges); however, gully erosion modeling and prediction with high accuracy are still difficult due to the complex interactions of various factors. The objective of this research was to develop and introduce three new ensemble models, which were based on Complex Proportional Assessment of Alternatives (COPRAS), Logistic Regression (LR), Boosted Regression Tree (BRT), Random Forest (RF), and Frequency Ratio (FR) for spatial prediction of gully erosion with a case study at the Najafabad watershed (Iran). For this purpose, a total of 290 head-cut of gullies and 17 conditioning factors were collected and used to establish a geospatial database. Subsequently, FR was used to determine the spatial relationship between the conditioning factors and the head-cut of gullies, whereas RF, BRT, and LR were used to quantify the relative importance of these factors. In the next step, three ensemble gully erosion models, named COPRAS-FR-RF, COPRAS-FR-BRT, and COPRAS-FR-LR were developed and verified. The Success Rate Curve (SRC), and the Prediction Rate Curve (PRC) and their areas under the curves (AUC) were used to check the performance of the three proposed models. The result showed that Soil group, geomorphology, and drainage density factors played the key role on the occurrence of the gully erosion. All the three models have very high degree-of-fit and the prediction performance, the COPRAS-FR-RF model (AUC-SRC = 0.974 and AUC-PRC = 0.929), the COPRAS-FR-BRT model (AUC-SRC = 0.973 and AUC-PRC = 0.928), and the COPRAS-FR-LR model (AUC-SRC = 0.972 and AUC-PRC = 0.926); therefore, it is concluded that they are efficient and new powerful tools which could be used for predicting gully erosion in prone-areas.

A Novel Ensemble Artificial Intelligence Approach for Gully Erosion Mapping in a Semi-Arid Watershed (Iran).

In this study, we introduced a novel hybrid artificial intelligence approach of rotation forest (RF) as a Meta/ensemble classifier based on alternating decision tree (ADTree) as a base classifier called RF-ADTree in order to spatially predict gully erosion at Klocheh watershed of Kurdistan province, Iran. A total of 915 gully erosion locations along with 22 gully conditioning factors were used to construct a database. Some soft computing benchmark models (SCBM) including the ADTree, the Support Vector Machine by two kernel functions such as Polynomial and Radial Base Function (SVM-Polynomial and SVM-RBF), the Logistic Regression (LR), and the Naïve Bayes Multinomial Updatable (NBMU) models were used for comparison of the designed model. Results indicated that 19 conditioning factors were effective among which distance to river, geomorphology, land use, hydrological group, lithology and slope angle were the most remarkable factors for gully modeling process. Additionally, results of modeling concluded the RF-ADTree ensemble model could significantly improve (area under the curve (AUC) = 0.906) the prediction accuracy of the ADTree model (AUC = 0.882). The new proposed model had also the highest performance (AUC = 0.913) in comparison to the SVM-Polynomial model (AUC = 0.879), the SVM-RBF model (AUC = 0.867), the LR model (AUC = 0.75), the ADTree model (AUC = 0.861) and the NBMU model (AUC = 0.811).

Development of artificial intelligence models for the prediction of Compression Coefficient of soil: An application of Monte Carlo sensitivity analysis.

In this study, we developed Different Artificial Intelligence (AI) models namely Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Adaptive Network based Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) for the prediction of Compression Coefficient of soil (Cc) which is one of the most important geotechnical parameters. A Monte Carlo approach was used for the sensitivity analysis of the AI models and input parameters. For the construction and validation of the models, 189 soft clayey soil samples were analyzed. In the models study, 13 input parameters: depth of sample, bulk density, plasticity index, moisture content, clay content, specific gravity, void ratio, liquid limit, dry density, porosity, plastic limit, degree of saturation, and liquidity index were used to obtain one output parameter "Cc". Validation of the models was done using statistical methods such as Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and Coefficient of determination (R2). Results of the model validation indicate that though performance of all the three models is good but SVM model is the best in the prediction of Cc. The Monte Carlo method based sensitivity analysis results show that out of the 13 input parameters considered for the models study, four parameters namely clay, degree of saturation, specific gravity and depth of sample are the most relevant in the prediction of Cc, and other parameters (bulk density, dry density, void ratio and porosity) are the most insignificant parameters for the prediction of Cc. Removal of these insignificant parameters helped to reduce the dimension of the input space and also model running time, and improved significantly the performance of the AI models. The results of this study might help in selecting the suitable AI models and input parameters for better and quick prediction of the Cc of soil.

Land subsidence modelling using tree-based machine learning algorithms.

Land subsidence (LS) is among the most critical environmental problems, affecting both agricultural sustainability and urban infrastructure. Existing methods often use either simple regression models or complex hydraulic models to explain and predict LS. There are few studies that identify the risk factors and predict the risk of LS using machine learning models. This study compares four tree-based machine learning models for land subsidence hazard modelling at a study area in Hamadan plain (Iran). The study also analyzes the importance of six risk factors including topography (elevation, slope), geomorphology (distance from stream, drainage density), hydrology (groundwater drawdown) and lithology on LS. Thematic layers of each variable related to the LS phenomenon are prepared and utilized as the inputs to the four tree-based machine learning models, including the Rule-Based Decision Tree (RBDT), Boosted Regression Trees (BRT), Classification And Regression Tree (CART), and the Random Forest (RF) algorithms to produce a consolidated LS hazard map. The accuracy of the generated maps is then evaluated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and the True Skill Statistics (TSS). The RF approach had the lowest predictive error for mapping the LS hazard (i.e., AUC 96.7% for training, AUC 93.8% for validation, TSS 0.912 for training, TSS 0.904 for validation) followed by BRT. Groundwater drawdown was seen to be the most influential factor that contributed to land subsidence in the present study area, followed by lithology and distance from the stream network.

Spatial pattern analysis and prediction of forest fire using new machine learning approach of Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines and Differential Flower Pollination optimization: A case study at Lao Cai province (Viet Nam).

Understanding spatial patterns of forest fire is of key important for fire danger management and ecological implication. This aim of this study was to propose a new machine learning methodology for analyzing and predicting spatial patterns of forest fire danger with a case study of tropical forest fire at Lao Cai province (Vietnam). For this purpose, a Geographical Information System (GIS) database for the study area was established, including ten influencing factors (slope, aspect, elevation, land use, distance to road, normalized difference vegetation index, rainfall, temperature, wind speed, and humidity) and 257 fire locations. The relevance level of these factors with the forest fire was analyzed and assessed using the Mutual Information algorithm. Then, a new hybrid artificial intelligence model named as MARS-DFP, which was Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) optimized by Differential Flower Pollination (DFP), was proposed and used construct forest fire model for generating spatial patterns of forest fire. MARS is employed to build the forest fire model for generalizing a classification boundary that distinguishes fire and non-fire areas, whereas DFP, a metaheuristic approach, was utilized to optimize the model. Finally, global prediction performance of the model was assessed using Area Under the curve (AUC), Classification Accuracy Rate (CAR), Wilcoxon signed-rank test, and various statistical indices. The result demonstrated that the predictive performance of the MARS-DFP model was high (AUC = 0.91 and CAR = 86.57%) and better to those of other benchmark methods, Backpropagation Artificial Neural Network, Adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system, Radial Basis Function Neural Network. This fact confirms that the newly constructed MARS-DFP model is a promising alternative for spatial prediction of forest fire susceptibility.