Landslide hazards affect the security of human life and property. Mapping the spatial distribution of landslide hazard risk is critical for decision-makers to implement disaster prevention measures. This study aimed to predict and zone landslide hazard risk, using Guixi County in eastern Jiangxi, China, as an example. An integrated dataset composed of 21 geo-information layers, including lithology, rainfall, altitude, slope, distances to faults, roads and rivers, and thickness of the weathering crust, was used to achieve the aim. Non-digital layers were digitized and assigned weights based on their landslide propensity. Landslide locations and non-risk zones (flat areas) were both vectorized as polygons and randomly divided into two groups to create a training set (70%) and a validation set (30%). Using this training set, the Random Forests (RF) algorithm, which is known for its accurate prediction, was applied to the integrated dataset for risk modeling. The results were assessed against the validation set. Overall accuracy of 91.23% and Kappa Coefficient of 0.82 were obtained. The calculated probability for each pixel was consequently graded into different zones for risk mapping. Hence, we conclude that landslide risk zoning using the RF algorithm can serve as a pertinent reference for local government in their disaster prevention and early warning measures.

Reliable prediction of landslide occurrence is important for hazard risk reduction and prevention. Taking Guixi in northeast Jiangxi as an example, this research aimed to conduct such a landslide risk assessment using a multiple logistic regression (MLR) algorithm. Field-investigated landslides and non-landslide sites were converted into polygons. We randomly generated 50,000 sampling points to intersect these polygons and the intersected points were divided into two parts, a training set (TS) and a validation set (VT) in a ratio of 7 to 3. Thirteen geo-environmental factors, including elevation, slope, and distance from roads were employed as hazard-causative factors, which were intersected by the TS to create the random point (RP)-based dataset. The next step was to compute the certainty factor (CF) of each factor to constitute a CF-based dataset. MLR was applied to the two datasets for landslide risk modeling. The probability of landslides was then calculated in each pixel, and risk maps were produced. The overall accuracy of these two models versus VS was 91.5% and 90.4% with a Kappa coefficient of 0.814 and 0.782, respectively. The RP-based MLR modeling achieved more reliable predictions and its risk map seems more plausible for providing technical support for implementing disaster prevention measures in Guixi.

Mapping susceptibility of landslide disaster is essential in subtropical area, where abundant rainfall may trigger landslide and mudflow, causing damages to human society. The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated methodology to achieve such a mapping work with improved prediction results using hybrid modeling taking Chongren, Jiangxi as an example. The methodology is composed of the optimal discretization of the continuous geo-environmental factors based on entropy, weight of evidence (WoE) calculation and application of the known machine learning (ML) models, e.g., Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Logistic Regression (LR). The results show the effectiveness of the proposed hybrid modeling for landslide hazard mapping in which the prediction accuracy vs the validation set reach 82.35–91.02% with an AUC [area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve] of 0.912–0.970. The RF algorithm performs best among the observed three ML algorithms and WoE-based RF modeling will be recommended for the similar landslide risk prediction elsewhere. We believe that our research can provide an operational reference for predicting the landslide hazard in the subtropical area and serve for disaster reduction and prevention action of the local governments.

Rare earth elements (REEs) are widely used in various industries. The open-pit mining and chemical extraction of REEs in the weathered crust in southern Jiangxi, China, since the 1970s have provoked severe damages to the environment. After 2010, different restorations have been implemented by various enterprises, which seem to have a spatial variability in both management techniques and efficiency from one mine to another. A number of vegetation indices, e.g., normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), soil-adjusted vegetation index (SAVI), enhanced vegetation index (EVI) and atmospherically resistant vegetation index (ARVI), can be used for this kind of monitoring and assessment but lack sensitivity to subtle differences. For this reason, the main objective of this study was to explore the possibility to develop new, mining-tailored remote sensing indicators to monitor the impacts of REE mining on the environment and to assess the effectiveness of its related restoration using multitemporal Landsat data from 1988 to 2019. The new indicators, termed mining and restoration assessment indicators (MRAIs), were developed based on the strong contrast of spectral reflectance, albedo, land surface temperature (LST) and tasseled cap brightness (TCB) of REE mines between mining and postmining restoration management. These indicators were tested against vegetation indices such as NDVI, EVI, SAVI and generalized difference vegetation index (GDVI), and found to be more sensitive. Of similar sensitivity to each other, one of the new indicators was employed to conduct the restoration assessment of the mined areas. Six typically managed mines with different restoration degrees and management approaches were selected as hotspots for a comparative analysis to highlight their temporal trajectories using the selected MRAI. The results show that REE mining had experienced a rapid expansion in 1988–2010 with a total mined area of about 66.29 km² in the observed counties. With implementation of the post-2010 restoration measures, an improvement of varying degrees in vegetation cover in most mines was distinguished and quantified. Hence, this study with the newly developed indicators provides a relevant approach for assessing the sustainable exploitation and management of REE resources in the study area.

Landslides constitute a severe environmental problem in Jiangxi, China. This research was aimed at conducting landslide hazard assessment to provide technical support for disaster reduction and prevention action in the province. Fourteen geo-environmental factors, e.g., slope, elevation, road, river, fault, lithology, rainfall, and land cover types, were selected for this study. A test was made in two cases: (1) only based on the main linear features, e.g., main rivers and roads, and (2) with detailed complete linear features including all levels of roads and rivers. After buffering of the linear features, an information value (IV) analysis was applied to quantify the distribution of the observed landslides for each subset of the 14 factors. The results were inputted into the binary logistic regression model (LRM) for landslide risk modeling, taking the known landslide points as a training set (70% of the total 9,525 points). The calculated probability of a landslide was further classified into five grades with an interval of 0.2 for hazard mapping: very high (3.70%), high (4.05%), moderate (18.72%), low (27.17%), and stable zones (46.36%). The accuracy was evaluated by AUC [the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve] vs. the validation set (30%, the remaining landslides). The final results show that with increasing the completeness of the linear features, the modeling reliability also significantly increased. We hence concluded that the tested methodology is capable of achieving the landslide hazard prediction at regional scale, and the results may provide technical support for geohazard reduction and prevention in the studied province.