Interactive Changes in Climatic and Hydrological Droughts, Water Quality, and Land Use/Cover of Tajan Watershed, Northern Iran

In response to novel and complex uncertainties, the present research is conducted to characterize the most significant indicators of watershed health including drought, water quality, and vegetation for the Tajan watershed, Mazandaran, Iran. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Streamflow Drought Index (SDI) are, respectively, used to quantify the meteorological and hydrological droughts in the present (1993–2020) and future (2023–2050) employing optimistic RCP2.6 and pessimistic RCP8.5 scenarios. To concoct discharge data for the future, IHACRES v1.0 software is used with a Nash–Sutcliffe coefficient (NSE) of 0.48 and a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.58. Maps of land use and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) are also prepared using Landsat images. Subsequently, the surface water quality is assessed using AqQA v1.1.0 software. The results show the difference in the severity of future meteorological droughts in different stations. In addition, the predominance of non-drought (SDI ≥ 0) or mild drought (−1 ≤ SDI < 0) is indicated for future hydrology. The land use changes show a decrease in rangeland (−5.47%) and an increase in residential land (9.17%). The water quality analysis also indicates an increase in carbonate ions in the watershed outlet. Communicating the relationships between study indicators, which is a big gap in the current watershed management approach, avoids future failures and catastrophes

Spatial Prediction of Future Flood Risk: An Approach to the Effects of Climate Change

Preparation of a flood probability map serves as the first step in a flood management program. This research develops a probability flood map for floods resulting from climate change in the future. Two models of Flexible Discrimination Analysis (FDA) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) were used. Two optimistic (RCP2.6) and pessimistic (RCP8.5) climate change scenarios were considered for mapping future rainfall. Moreover, to produce probability flood occurrence maps, 263 locations of past flood events were used as dependent variables. The number of 13 factors conditioning floods was taken as independent variables in modeling. Of the total 263 flood locations, 80% (210 locations) and 20% (53 locations) were considered model training and validation. The Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve and other statistical criteria were used to validate the models. Based on assessments of the validated models, FDA, with a ROC-AUC = 0.918, standard error (SE = 0.038), and an accuracy of 0.86% compared to the ANN model with a ROC-AUC = 0.897, has the highest accuracy in preparing the flood probability map in the study area. The modeling results also showed that the factors of distance from the River, altitude, slope, and rainfall have the greatest impact on floods in the study area. Both models&rsquo; future flood susceptibility maps showed that the highest area is related to the very low class. The lowest area is related to the high class

Earthquake Vulnerability Mapping Using Different Hybrid Models

The main purpose of the present study was to mathematically integrate different decision support systems to enhance the accuracy of seismic vulnerability mapping in Sanandaj City, Iran. An earthquake is considered to be a catastrophe that poses a serious threat to human infrastructures at different scales. Factors affecting seismic vulnerability were identified in three different dimensions; social, environmental, and physical. Our computer-based modeling approach was used to create hybrid training datasets via fuzzy-multiple criteria analysis (fuzzy-MCDA) and multiple criteria decision analysis-multi-criteria evaluation (MCDA-MCE) for training the multi-criteria evaluation&ndash;logistic regression (MCE&ndash;LR) and fuzzy-logistic regression (fuzzy-LR) hybrid model. The resulting dataset was validated using the seismic relative index (SRI) method and ten damaged spots from the study area, in which the MCDA-MCE model showed higher accuracy. The hybrid learning models of MCE-LR and fuzzy-LR were implemented using both resulting datasets for seismic vulnerability mapping. Finally, the resulting seismic vulnerability maps based on each model were validation using area under curve (AUC) and frequency ratio (FR). Based on the accuracy assessment results, the MCDA-MCE hybrid model (AUC = 0.85) showed higher accuracy than the fuzzy-MCDA model (AUC = 0.80), and the MCE-LR hybrid model (AUC = 0.90) resulted in more accurate vulnerability map than the fuzzy-LR hybrid model (AUC = 0.85). The results of the present study show that the accuracy of modeling and mapping seismic vulnerability in our case study area is directly related to the accuracy of the training dataset

Assessment of Ensemble Models for Groundwater Potential Modeling and Prediction in a Karst Watershed

Due to numerous droughts in recent years, the amount of surface water in arid and semi-arid regions has decreased significantly, so reliance on groundwater to meet local and regional demands has increased. The Kabgian watershed is a karst watershed in southwestern Iran that provides a significant proportion of drinking and agriculture water supplies in the area. This study identified areas with karst groundwater potential using a combination of machine learning and statistical models, including entropy-SVM-LN, entropy-SVM-SG, and entropy-SVM-RBF. To do this, 384 karst springs were identified and mapped. Sixteen factors that are related to karst potential were identified from a review of the literature, and these were compiled for the study area. The 384 locations were randomly separated into two categories for training (269 location) and validation (115 location) datasets to be used in the modeling process. The ROC curve was used to evaluate the modeling results. The models used, in general, were good at determining the location of karst groundwater potential. The evaluation showed that the E-SVM-RBF model had an area under the curve of 0.92, indicating that it was most accurate estimator of groundwater potential among the ensemble models. Evaluation of the relative importance of each of the 16 factors revealed that land use, a vector ruggedness measure, curvature, and topography roughness index were the most important explainers of the presence of karst groundwater in the study area. It was also found that the factors affecting the presence of karst springs are significantly different from non-karst springs

Spatial analysis of environmental factors influencing dust sources in the east of Iran using a new active-learning approach

The frequency and intensity of dust storms in Iran has increased significantly in recent years. This study identifies the sources of dust using hybrid algorithms – probability density-index of entropy (PD-IOE), probability density-radial basic function neural network (PD-RBFNN), probability density-self-organizing map (PD-SOM), and probability density-fuzzy ARTMAP (PD-FAM). Hybrid models employed several effective environmental factors: land cover, slope, soil, land use, wind speed, geology, temperature, and precipitation. A random selection of 70% of the data points were used for training the spatial models and the remainder (30%) were used to test the effectiveness of the models to determine the best algorithm. The results reveal that the PD-FAM algorithm produced the most accurate predictions of dust sources. Geology, slope, and soil were the factors that were most effective predictors of dust generation in eastern Iran. Comprehensive management is needed to manage dust production in Iran and these findings may ease identification of locations most likely to produce dust

Assessment of Gini-, entropy- and ratio-based classification trees for groundwater potential modelling and prediction

Artificial-intelligence and machine-learning algorithms are gaining the attention of researchers in the field of groundwater modelling. This study explored and assessed a new approach based on Gini-, entropy- and ratio-based classification trees to predict spatial patterns of groundwater potential in a mountainous region of Iran. To do this, a springs inventory was undertaken, and 362 springs were identified in the study area. A set of geo-environmental and topo-hydrological factors (slope, aspect, elevation, topographic wetness index, distance from fault, distance from river, precipitation, land use, lithology, plan curvature and roughness index) were used as predictors of groundwater. Results showed that Gini (AUC = 0.865) achieved the best results, followed by entropy (AUC = 0.847) and ratio (AUC = 0.859). Lithology was determined to be the variable with the best association with groundwater in the study area. These results indicate that all three algorithms provide robust models of groundwater potential in this mountainous region. Highlights Gini, entropy and ratio were investigated for groundwater potential mapping. Eleven groundwater-affecting factors were considered. Lithology is the most important factor for groundwater potential mapping Gini based decision tree is the best, followed by entropy and ratio model

A semi-automated object-based gully networks detection using different machine learning models : a case study of Bowen catchment, Queensland, Australia

Gully erosion is a dominant source of sediment and particulates to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) World Heritage area. We selected the Bowen catchment, a tributary of the Burdekin Basin, as our area of study; the region is associated with a high density of gully networks. We aimed to use a semi-automated object-based gully networks detection process using a combination of multi-source and multi-scale remote sensing and ground-based data. An advanced approach was employed by integrating geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) with current machine learning (ML) models. These included artificial neural networks (ANN), support vector machines (SVM), and random forests (RF), and an ensemble ML model of stacking to deal with the spatial scaling problem in gully networks detection. Spectral indices such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and topographic conditioning factors, such as elevation, slope, aspect, topographic wetness index (TWI), slope length (SL), and curvature, were generated from Sentinel 2A images and the ALOS 12-m digital elevation model (DEM), respectively. For image segmentation, the ESP2 tool was used to obtain three optimal scale factors. On using object pureness index (OPI), object matching index (OMI), and object fitness index (OFI), the accuracy of each scale in image segmentation was evaluated. The scale parameter of 45 with OFI of 0.94, which is a combination of OPI and OMI indices, proved to be the optimal scale parameter for image segmentation. Furthermore, segmented objects based on scale 45 were overlaid with 70% and 30% of a prepared gully inventory map to select the ML models training and testing objects, respectively. The quantitative accuracy assessment methods of Precision, Recall, and an F1 measure were used to evaluate the models performance. Integration of GEOBIA with the stacking model using a scale of 45 resulted in the highest accuracy in detection of gully networks with an F1 measure value of 0.89. Here, we conclude that the adoption of optimal scale object definition in the GEOBIA and application of the ensemble stacking of ML models resulted in higher accuracy in the detection of gully networks.(VLID)459265

A Comparative Assessment of Random Forest and k-Nearest Neighbor Classifiers for Gully Erosion Susceptibility Mapping

This research was conducted to determine which areas in the Robat Turk watershed in Iran are sensitive to gully erosion, and to define the relationship between gully erosion and geo-environmental factors by two data mining techniques, namely, Random Forest (RF) and k-Nearest Neighbors (KNN). First, 242 gully locations we determined in field surveys and mapped in ArcGIS software. Then, twelve gully-related conditioning factors were selected. Our results showed that, for both the RF and KNN models, altitude, distance to roads, and distance from the river had the highest influence upon gully erosion sensitivity. We assessed the gully erosion susceptibility maps using the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve. Validation results showed that the RF and KNN models had Area Under the Curve (AUC) 87.4 and 80.9%, respectively. As a result, the RF method has better performance compared with the KNN method for mapping gully erosion susceptibility. Rainfall, altitude, and distance from a river were identified as the most important factors affecting gully erosion in this area. The methodology used in this research is transferable to other regions to determine which areas are prone to gully erosion and to explicitly delineate high-risk zones within these areas

A novel GIS-based ensemble technique for rangeland downward trend mapping as an ecological indicator change

Rangelands provide important ecosystem services worldwide. The present study was aimed to map rangeland degradation in a critical mountainous rangeland ecosystem of Iran. The study was carried out based on seven years intensive fieldwork and recording 1147 locations with downward trends in the quality of the rangelands. Twelve conditional factors and two important ensemble algorithms including Probability density-Index of entropy (PD-IOE) and Frequency ratio-Index of entropy (FR-IOE), were used to produce rangeland downward trend (RDT) susceptibility maps. The results of validation showed that PD-IOE hybrid model with area under curve (AUC = 0.901) and standard error (SE = 0.011) is more accurate than FR-IOE hybrid model (AUC = 0.881 and SE = 0.012). In addition, our results indicate that altitude, distance to river, and distance to road are the most important factors for rangeland degradation. In addition, the places with higher altitude and less distance to roads and rivers endured more degradation and these places have downward trends. Based on the achieved results, 2% and 10% of study area fall into the very high and high classes of downward trends, respectively. Overgrazing and early grazing are two main drivers for rangeland degradation in the study area, and the rangeland managers and decision makers should define and develop strategies to reduce pressure on rangelands and promote strategies to restore these important ecosystems.</p

Optimization of statistical and machine learning hybrid models for groundwater potential mapping

Determining areas of high groundwater potential is important for exploitation, management, and protection of water resources. This study assesses the spatial distribution of groundwater potential in the Zarrinehroud watershed of Kurdistan Province, Iran using combinations of five statistical and machine learning algorithms – frequency ratio (FR), radial basis function (RBF), index of entropy (IOE), evidential belief function (EBF) and fuzzy art map (FAM). To accomplish this, 1448 well locations in the study area were randomly divided into two data sets for training (70%= 1013 locations) and validation (30%= 435 locations) based on the holdout method. Fourteen factors that can affect the presence or absence of groundwater were identified, measured, and mapped using ArcGIS and SAGA-GIS software. The models were used to predict the locations of groundwater based on suitable combinations of the conditioning factors to produce groundwater potential maps. The probability of groundwater at any location was classified as low, moderate, high, or very high based on natural breaks in the data spectrum. The model predictions were tested for validity and their success was determined using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, standard errors (SE), positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), sensitivity (SST), specificity (SPF) and accuracy (ACC), and the Friedman test. The performance assessments of groundwater potential predictions using the area under the curve (AUC) and accuracy (ACC) showed that the FR-RBF model had very good performance (AUC= 0.889, ACC= 87.51). FR-FAM (AUC= 0.869, ACC= 84.67), EBF-FAM (AUC= 0.864, ACC= 84.42), EBF-RBF (AUC= 0.854, ACC= 83.94), FR-IOE (AUC= 0.836, ACC= 83.62), and EBF-IOE (AUC= 0.833, ACC= 80.42) also had acceptable performance. The results of the Friedman test also show that there are significant differences between the models and the highest mean rank was generated by the FR-FAM model (3.642). Therefore, the hybrid models can be used to increase the accuracy of groundwater-prediction models in the study region and perhaps in similar settings. Highlights The groundwater potential was studied in the area of Zarrinehroud watershed A combination of methods including FR, RBF, IOE, EBF and FAM Very high and high groundwater potential areas were located in the northern half The development of hybrid models can increase the accuracy of the result