Landslides are a common type of natural disaster in mountainous areas. As a result of the comprehensive influences of geology, geomorphology and climatic conditions, the susceptibility to landslide hazards in mountainous areas shows obvious regionalism. The evaluation of regional landslide susceptibility can help reduce the risk to the lives of mountain residents. In this paper, the Shannon entropy theory, a fuzzy comprehensive method and an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) have been used to demonstrate a variable type of weighting for landslide susceptibility evaluation modeling, combining subjective and objective weights. Further, based on a single factor sensitivity analysis, we established a strict criterion for landslide susceptibility assessments. Eight influencing factors have been selected for the study of Zhen’an County, Shan’xi Province: the lithology, relief amplitude, slope, aspect, slope morphology, altitude, annual mean rainfall and distance to the river. In order to verify the advantages of the proposed method, the landslide index, prediction accuracy P, the R-index and the area under the curve were used in this paper. The results show that the proposed model of landslide hazard susceptibility can help to produce more objective and accurate landslide susceptibility maps, which not only take advantage of the information from the original data, but also reflect an expert’s knowledge and the opinions of decision-makers.

Groundwater is a valuable water source for drinking and irrigation purposes in semiarid regions. Groundwater pollution may affect human health if it is not pretreated and provided for human use. This study investigated the hydrochemical characteristics driving groundwater quality for drinking and irrigation purposes and potential human health risks in the Xinzhou Basin, Shanxi Province, North China. More specifically, we first investigated hydrochemical characteristics using a descriptive statistical analysis method. We then classified the hydrochemical types and analyzed the evolution mechanisms of groundwater using Piper and Gibbs diagrams. Finally, we appraised the groundwater quality for drinking and irrigation purposes using the entropy water quality index (EWQI). We assessed the associated human health risks for different age and sex groups through drinking intake and dermal contact pathways. Overall, we found that (1) Ca-HCO₃ and Ca·Mg-HCO₃ were the dominant hydrochemical types and were mainly governed by rock weathering and water–rock interactions. (2) Based on the EWQI classifications, 67.74% of the groundwater samples were classified as medium quality and acceptable for drinking purpose. According to the values of sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), residual sodium carbonate (RSC) and soluble sodium percentage (%Na), 90.32% of the samples were suitable for irrigation, while the remaining samples were unfit for irrigation because of the high salinity in the groundwater. (3) Some contaminants in the groundwater, such as NO₃⁻, NO₂⁻ and F⁻, exceeded the standard limits and may cause potential risks to human health. Our work presented in this paper could establish reasonable management strategies for sustainable groundwater quality protection to protect public health.

In recent years, due to adverse geological conditions, intense human engineering activities, and extreme weather conditions, catastrophic landslides have frequently occurred in southwest China, causing severe loss of life and property. Identifying the kinematic features of potential landslides can effectively support landslide hazard prevention. This study proposes a remote sensing identification method for rotational, planar traction, and planar thrust slides based on geomorphic features as well as vertical and slope-oriented deformation rates. Rotational landslides are characterized by similar vertical and horizontal deformation rates, with vertical deformation mainly occurring at the head and gradually decreasing along the slope, while horizontal deformation mainly occurs at the foot and gradually increases along the slope. As for the planar slide, the dominant deformation is in the horizontal direction. It is further classified into the planar traction and planar thrust types according to the driving position. The vertical deformation of planar traction slides is concentrated at the foot, while the vertical deformation of planar thrust slides is concentrated at the head of the landslide. We identified 1 rotational landslide, 10 planar traction landslides and 10 planar thrust landslides in the basalt weathering crust area of Guizhou. Field investigations of three landslides verified the method’s accuracy. Combining two-dimensional rainfall and time-series deformations, we found that there is a significant positive correlation between landslide deformation acceleration and precipitation. The landslide kinematic identification method proposed in this paper overcomes the shortcomings of the inability to accurately characterize landslide motion by line-of-sight displacement and realizes the non-contact identification of active landslide motion patterns, which is an essential reference value for geological disaster prevention and control in the study area.