This study focused on producing flash flood hazard susceptibility maps (FFHSM) using frequency ratio (FR) and statistical index (SI) models in the Xiqu Gully (XQG) of Beijing, China. First, a total of 85 flash flood hazard locations (n = 85) were surveyed in the field and plotted using geographic information system (GIS) software. Based on the flash flood hazard locations, a flood hazard inventory map was built. Seventy percent (n = 60) of the flooding hazard locations were randomly selected for building the models. The remaining 30% (n = 25) of the flooded hazard locations were used for validation. Considering that the XQG used to be a coal mining area, coalmine caves and subsidence caused by coal mining exist in this catchment, as well as many ground fissures. Thus, this study took the subsidence risk level into consideration for FFHSM. The ten conditioning parameters were elevation, slope, curvature, land use, geology, soil texture, subsidence risk area, stream power index (SPI), topographic wetness index (TWI), and short-term heavy rain. This study also tested different classification schemes for the values for each conditional parameter and checked their impacts on the results. The accuracy of the FFHSM was validated using area under the curve (AUC) analysis. Classification accuracies were 86.61%, 83.35%, and 78.52% using frequency ratio (FR)-natural breaks, statistical index (SI)-natural breaks and FR-manual classification schemes, respectively. Associated prediction accuracies were 83.69%, 81.22%, and 74.23%, respectively. It was found that FR modeling using a natural breaks classification method was more appropriate for generating FFHSM for the Xiqu Gully.

Saline soil in seasonally frozen soil areas has caused tremendous damage to engineering and the ecological environment. The unfrozen water is the main factor affecting the properties of saline soil in seasonally frozen soil area and therefore needs to be studied. However, due to the high cost of laboratory measurement of the unfrozen water content, this study focuses on using an adaptive network fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and a back propagation neural network (BPNN) to predict the unfrozen water content of saline soil in the Zhenlai area, Western Jilin. The data for the constructed model is obtained by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) testing. The initial water content (W₀), salt content (S), and temperature (T) are used as input parameters for predicting the unfrozen water content (W_u). The results of the ANFIS and BPNN models are compared. The results show that although both methods are suitable for predicting the unfrozen water content of saline soil in the Zhenlai area, western Jilin, the prediction accuracy of the ANFIS model is higher.

This study focused on landslide susceptibility analysis mapping of the Xulong hydropower station reservoir, which is located in the upstream of Jinsha River, a rapidly uplifting region of the Tibetan Plateau region. Nine factors were employed as landslide conditioning factors in landslide susceptibility mapping. These factors included the slope angle, slope aspect, curvature, geology, distance-to-fault, distance-to-river, vegetation, bedrock uplift and annual precipitation. The rapid bedrock uplift factor was represented by the slope angle. The eight factors were processed with the information content model. Since this area has a significant vertical distribution law of precipitation, the annual precipitation factor was analyzed separately. The analytic hierarchy process weighting method was used to calculate the weights of nine factors. Thus, this study proposed a component approach to combine the normalized eight-factor results with the normalized annual precipitation distribution results. Subsequently, the results were plotted in geographic information system (GIS) and a landslide susceptibility map was produced. The evaluation accuracy analysis method was used as a validation approach. The landslide susceptibility classes were divided into four classes, including low, moderate, high and very high. The results show that the four susceptibility class ratios are 12.9%, 35.06%, 34.11%and 17.92% of the study area, respectively. The red belt in the high elevation area represents the very high susceptibility zones, which followed the vertical distribution law of precipitation. The prediction accuracy was 85.74%, which meant that the susceptibility map was confirmed to be reliable and reasonable. This susceptibility map may contribute to averting the landslide risk in the future construction of the Xulong hydropower station.

This study focused on a cloud model approach for considering debris-flow hazard assessment, in which the cloud model provided a model for transforming the qualitative and quantitative expressions. Additionally, the entropy method and analytical hierarchy process were united for calculating the parameters weights. The weighting method avoids the disadvantages inherent in using subjective or objective methods alone. Based on the cloud model and component weighting method, a model was established for the analysis of debris-flow hazard assessment. There are 29 debris-flow catchments around the pumped storage power station in the study area located near Zhirui (Inner Mongolia, China). Field survey data and 3S technologies were used for data collection. The results of the cloud model calculation process showed that of the 29 catchments, 25 had low debris-flow hazard assessment, three had moderate hazard assessment, and one had high hazard assessment. The widely used extenics method and field geological surveys were used to validate the proposed approach. This approach shows high potential as a useful tool for debris-flow hazard assessment analysis. Compared with other prediction methods, it avoids the randomness and fuzziness in uncertainty problems, and its prediction results are considered reasonable.

Land reclamation has been increasingly employed in many coastal cities to resolve issues associated with land scarcity and natural hazards. Especially, land subsidence is a non-negligible environmental geological problem in reclamation areas, which is essentially caused by soil consolidation. However, spatial-scale evaluation on the average degree of consolidation (ADC) of soil layers and the effects of soil consolidation on land subsidence have rarely been reported. This study aims to carry out the integrated analysis on soil consolidation and subsidence mechanism in Chongming East Shoal (CES) reclamation area, Shanghai, at spatial-, macro-, and micro-scale so that appropriate guides can be provided to resist the potential environmental hazards. The interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technique was utilized to retrieve the settlement curves of the selected onshore (Ra) and offshore (Rb) areas. Then, the hyperbolic (HP) model and three-point modified exponential (TME) model were combined applied to predict the ultimate settlement and to determine the range of ADC rather than a single pattern. With two boreholes Ba and Bb set within Ra and Rb, conventional tests, MIP test, and SEM test were conducted on the collected undisturbed soil to clarify the geological features of exposed soil layers and the micro-scale pore and structure characteristics of representative compression layer. The preliminary results showed that the ADC in Rb (93.1–94.1%) was considerably higher than that in Ra (60.8–78.7%); the clay layer was distinguished as the representative compression layer; on micro-scale, the poor permeability conditions contributed to the low consolidation efficiency and slight subsidence in Rb, although there was more compression space. During urbanization, the offshore area may suffer from potential subsidence when it is subjected to an increasing ground load, which requires special attention.