Using likelihood ratio functions for modeling the conditional probability of occurrence of future landslides for risk assessment

The most crucial and difficult task in landslide hazard analysis is estimating the conditional probability of occurrence of future landslides in a study area within a specific time period, given specific geomorphic and topographic features. This task can be addressed with a mathematical model that estimates the required conditional probability in two stages: “relative hazard mapping” and “empirical probability estimation.” The first stage divides the study area into a number of “prediction” classes according to their relative likelihood of occurrence of future landslides, based on the geomorphic and topographic data. Each prediction class represents a relative level of hazard with respect to other prediction classes. The number of classes depends on the quantity and quality of input data. Several quantitative models have been developed and tested for use in this stage; the objective is to delineate typical settings in which future landslides are likely to occur. In this stage, problems related to different degrees of resolution in the input data layers are resolved. The second stage is to empirically estimate the conditional probability of landslide occurrence in each prediction class by a cross-validation technique. The basic strategy is to divide past occurrences of landslides into two groups, a “modeling group” and a “validation group”. The first mapping stage is repeated, but the prediction is limited to only those landslide occurrences in the modeling group that are used to construct a new set of prediction classes. The new set of prediction classes is compared to the distribution of landslide occurrences in the validation group. Statistics from the comparison provide a quantitative measure of the conditional probability of occurrence of future landslides.