Comparison of Effective Soil Depth Classification Methods Using Topographic Information

Research on the causes of landslides and prediction of vulnerable areas is being conducted globally. This study aims to predict the effective soil depth, a critical element in analyzing and forecasting landslide disasters, using topographic information. Topographic data from various institutions were collected and assigned as attribute information to a 100 m x 100 m grid, which was then reduced through data grading. The study predicted effective soil depth for two cases: three depths (shallow, normal, deep) and five depths (very shallow, shallow, normal, deep, very deep). Three classification models, including K-Nearest Neighbor, Random Forest, and Deep Artificial Neural Network, were used, and their performance was evaluated by calculating accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score. Results showed that the performance was in the high 50% to early 70% range, with the accuracy of the three classification criteria being about 5% higher than the five criteria. Although the grading criteria and classification model's performance presented in this study are still insufficient, the application of the classification model is possible in predicting the effective soil depth. This study suggests the possibility of predicting more reliable values than the current effective soil depth, which assumes a large area uniformly.