The risks associated with landslides are increasing the personal losses and material damages in more and more areas of the world. These natural disasters are related to geological and extreme meteorological phenomena (e.g., earthquakes, hurricanes) occurring in regions that have already suffered similar previous natural catastrophes. Therefore, to effectively mitigate the landslide risks, new methodologies must better identify and understand all these landslide hazards through proper management. Within these methodologies, those based on assessing the landslide susceptibility increase the predictability of the areas where one of these disasters is most likely to occur. In the last years, much research has used machine learning algorithms to assess susceptibility using different sources of information, such as remote sensing data, spatial databases, or geological catalogues. This study presents the first attempt to develop a methodology based on an automatic machine learning (AutoML) framework. These frameworks are intended to facilitate the development of machine learning models, with the aim to enable researchers focus on data analysis. The area to test/validate this study is the center and southern region of Guerrero (Mexico), where we compare the performance of 16 machine learning algorithms. The best result achieved is the extra trees with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.983. This methodology yields better results than other similar methods because using an AutoML framework allows to focus on the treatment of the data, to better understand input variables and to acquire greater knowledge about the processes involved in the landslides.

Natural hazards include a wide range of high-impact phenomena that affect socioeconomic and natural systems. Landslides are a natural hazard whose destructive power has caused a significant number of victims and substantial damage around the world. Remote sensing provides many data types and techniques that can be applied to monitor their effects through landslides inventory maps. Three unsupervised change detection methods were applied to the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (Aster)-derived images from an area prone to landslides in the south of Mexico. Linear Regression (LR), Chi-Square Transformation, and Change Vector Analysis were applied to the principal component and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data to obtain the difference image of change. The thresholding was performed on the change histogram using two approaches: the statistical parameters and the secant method. According to previous works, a slope mask was used to classify the pixels as landslide/No-landslide; a cloud mask was used to eliminate false positives; and finally, those landslides less than 450 m2 (two Aster pixels) were discriminated. To assess the landslide detection accuracy, 617 polygons (35,017 pixels) were sampled, classified as real landslide/No-landslide, and defined as ground-truth according to the interpretation of color aerial photo slides to obtain omission/commission errors and Kappa coefficient of agreement. The results showed that the LR using NDVI data performs the best results in landslide detection. Change detection is a suitable technique that can be applied for the landslides mapping and we think that it can be replicated in other parts of the world with results similar to those obtained in the present work.

The aim of the topographic normalization of remotely sensed imagery is to reduce reflectance variability caused by steep terrain and thus improve further processing of images. A process of topographic correction was applied to Landsat imagery in a mountainous forest area in the south of Mexico. The method used was the Sun Canopy Sensor + C correction (SCS + C) where the C parameter was differently determined according to a classification of the topographic slopes of the studied area in nine classes for each band, instead of using a single C parameter for each band. A comparative, visual, and numerical analysis of the normalized reflectance was performed based on the corrected images. The results showed that the correction by slope classification improves the elimination of the effect of shadows and relief, especially in steep slope areas, modifying the normalized reflectance values according to the combination of slope, aspect, and solar geometry, obtaining reflectance values more suitable than the correction by non-slope classification. The application of the proposed method can be generalized, improving its performance in forest mountainous areas.