The Displacement Analysis and Prediction of a Creeping Ancient Landslide at Suoertou, Zhouqu County, China

The ancient Suoertou landslide seriously threatens the surrounding population's lives and property. Monitoring and predicting this landslide is crucial to ensure the affected areas’ safety. The previous research on the landslide's displacement characteristics and mechanisms has lacked detailed analyses. In addition, its future development trends must be understood. Therefore, we conducted a detailed analysis of the ancient Suoertou landslide's displacement characteristics and mechanisms using small baseline subset interferometric synthetic aperture radar monitoring results from 2018 to 2023. Furthermore, by applying a gated recurrent unit prediction mode that incorporates the refined displacement characteristics and mechanisms, we forecasted the landslide's displacement trends. The results show that this landslide is currently undergoing overall slow displacement with violent fluctuations in localized areas. Tectonic movement, precipitation, human activities, river erosion, and other factors interact, forming a vicious development displacement mechanism. According to our prediction, the displacement of this landslide will be in a trend of fluctuating increase from June 2023 to June 2024. In particular, the local area will undergo abnormal displacement acceleration. The results of the current research provide a scientific basis upon which to monitor landslides, promote their management, and reduce the risk of losses due to landslide disasters.