In this study, Logistics Regression (LR), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), Gradient Boosting Machine (GBM), and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) machine learning algorithms are combined with GIS techniques to map landslide susceptibility in Shexian County, China. By using satellite images and various topographic and geological maps, 16 landslide susceptibility factor maps of Shexian County were initially constructed. In total, 502 landslide and random safety points were then using the “Extract Multivalues To Points” tool in ArcGIS, parameters for the 16 factors were extracted and imported into models for the five algorithms, of which 70% of samples were used for training and 30% of samples were used for verification, which makes sense for date symmetry. The Shexian grid was converted into 260130 vector points and imported into the five models, and the natural breakpoint method was used to divide the grid into four levels: low, moderate, high, and very high. Finally, by using column results gained using Area Under Curve (AUC) analysis and a grid chart, susceptibility results for mapping landslide prediction in Shexian County was compared using the five methods. Results indicate that the ratio of landslide points of high or very high levels from LR, SVM, RF, GBM, and MLP was 1.52, 1.77, 1.95, 1.83, and 1.64, and the ratio of very high landslide points to grade area was 1.92, 2.20, 2.98, 2.62, and 2.14, respectively. The success rate of training samples for the five methods was 0.781, 0.824, 0.853, 0.828, and 0.811, and prediction accuracy was 0.772, 0.803, 0.821, 0.815, and 0.803, respectively; the order of accuracy of the five algorithms was RF > SVM > MLP > GBM > LR. Our results indicate that the five machine learning algorithms have good effect on landslide susceptibility evaluation in Shexian area, with Random Forest having the best effect.

The main purpose of this research is to apply the logistic regression (LR) model, the support vector machine (SVM) model based on radial basis function, the random forest (RF) model, and the coupled model of the whale optimization algorithm (WOA) and genetic algorithm (GA) with RF, to make landslide susceptibility mapping for the Ankang City of Shaanxi Province, China. To this end, a landslide inventory map consisting of 4278 identified landslides is randomly divided into training and test landslides in a ratio of 7 : 3. The 15 landslide influencing factors are selected as follows: slope aspect, slope degree, elevation, terrain curvature, plane curvature, profile curvature, surface roughness, distance to faults, distance to roads, landform, lithology, distance to rivers, rainfall, stream power index (SPI), and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and the potential multicollinearity problem among these factors is detected by Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC), variance inflation factor (VIF), and tolerance (TOL). We evaluate the performance of the model separately by statistical training and test dataset metrics, including sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, kappa, mean absolute error (MSE), root mean square error (RMSE), and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. The training success rates of LR, SVM, RF, WOA-RF, and GA-RF models are 0.7546, 0.8317, 0.8561, 0.8804, and 0.8957; the testing success rates are 0.7551, 0.8375, 0.8395, 0.8348, and 0.85007. The results show that the GA significantly improves the predictive power of the RF model. This study provides a scientific reference for disaster prevention and control in this area and its surrounding areas.