Towards an Ensemble Machine Learning Model of Random Subspace Based Functional Tree Classifier for Snow Avalanche Susceptibility Mapping

Snow avalanche as a natural disaster severely affects socio-economic and geomorphic processes through damaging ecosystems, vegetation, landscape, infrastructures, transportation networks, and human life. Modeling the snow avalanche has been seen as an essential approach for understanding the mountainous landscape dynamics to assess hazard susceptibility leading to effective mitigation and resilience. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to introduce and implement an ensemble machine learning model of random subspace (RS) based on a classifier, functional tree (FT), named RSFT model for snow avalanche susceptibility mapping at Karaj Watershed, Iran. According to the best knowledge of literature, the proposed model, RSFT, has not earlier been introduced and implemented for snow avalanche modeling and mapping over the world. Four benchmark models, including logistic regression (LR), logistic model tree (LMT), alternating decision tree (ADT), and functional trees (FT) models were used to check the goodness-of-fit and prediction accuracy of the proposed model. To achieve this objective, the most important factors among many climatic, topographic, lithologic, and hydrologic factors, which affect the snow accumulation and snow avalanche occurrence, were determined by the information gain ratio (IGR) technique. The goodness-of-fit and prediction accuracy of the models were evaluated by some statistical-based indexes including, sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, kappa, and area under the ROC curve, Friedman and Wilcoxon sign rank tests. Results indicated that the ensemble proposed model (RSFT), had the highest performance (Sensitivity = 94.1%, Specificity = 92.4%, Accuracy = 93.3%, and Kappa = 0.782) rather than the other soft-computing benchmark models. The snow avalanche susceptibility maps indicated that the high and very high susceptibility avalanche areas are located in the north and northeast parts of the study area, which have a higher elevation with more precipitation and lower temperatures.