Slope deformation prediction is one of the critical factors in the early warning of slope failure. Establishing an accurate slope deformation prediction model is important. Time-series displacement data of slopes directly reflect the deformation characteristics and stability properties of slopes. The use of existing data analysis approaches, such as statistical methods and machine learning algorithms, to establish a reasonable and accurate prediction model based on the monitored time-series displacement data is a common solution to slope deformation prediction. In this paper, we conduct a comparative investigation of machine learning approaches for slope deformation prediction based on monitored time-series displacement data. First, we established eleven slope deformation prediction models based on the time-series displacement data obtained from seven in situ monitoring points of the Huanglianshu landslide using machine learning approaches. Second, four evaluation metrics were used to comparatively analyze the prediction performance of all models at each monitoring point. The experimental results of the Huanglianshu landslide indicated that the long-short-term memory (LSTM) model with an attention mechanism and the transformer model achieved the highest prediction accuracy. The comparative analysis of model characteristics suggested that the Transformer model is better adapted to predict nonlinear landslide displacements that are affected by multiple factors. The drawn conclusion could help select a suitable slope deformation model for early landslide warnings.

The Pemo Highway is a critical transportation road to Medog County in the Tibet Plateau (TP). Since its completion in 2021, the Pemo Highway has been prone to frequent avalanches due to heavy rainfall and snowfall. Despite the lack of monitoring stations along the highway and limited research conducted in this area, remote sensing imagery provides valuable data for investigating avalanche hazards along the highway. In this paper, we first investigated the spatiotemporal characteristics of snow cover along the Pemo Highway over the past two years based on the GEE platform. Second, we integrated snow, topography, meteorology, and vegetation factors to assess avalanche susceptibility in January, February, and March 2023 along the highway using the AHP method. The results reveal that the exit of the Duoshungla Tunnel is particularly susceptible to avalanches during the winter months, specifically from January to March, with a significant risk observed in March. Approximately 3.7 km in the direction of the tunnel exit to Lager is prone to avalanche hazards during this period. The recent “1.17 avalanche” event along the Pemo Highway validates the accuracy of our analysis. The findings of this paper provide timely guidance for implementing effective avalanche prevention measures on the Pemo Highway.

Landslide displacement monitoring can directly reflect the deformation process of a landslide. Predicting landslide displacements using monitored time series data through deep learning is a useful method for landslide early warning. Currently, existing prediction models mainly focus on single-point time series displacement prediction and do not consider the spatial relationship between monitoring points. To fully take into account the temporal and spatial correlation of displacement monitoring data, this paper proposes two models based on the graph convolutional network (GCN) to perform spatiotemporal prediction of the displacement of the Tangjiao 1# landslide. Firstly, the landslide monitoring system is transformed into a fully connected graph (FCG) to depict the spatial relationship among monitoring points on the landslide. Secondly, a temporal graph convolutional network (T-GCN) model and an attention temporal graph convolutional network (A3T-GCN) model of landslide displacement based on the GCN and GRU models are established respectively. Thirdly, the two models are used to predict the displacement of the Tangjiao 1# landslide. The results show that the established spatiotemporal prediction models are effective in predicting the displacement of the Tangjiao 1# landslide, and the proposed A3T-GCN model achieves the highest prediction accuracy. Our conclusion validates the effectiveness of the attention mechanism in predicting landslide displacement.