Adaptation and comparison of expert opinion to analytical hierarchy process for landslide susceptibility mapping

In this study, an attempt was made to re-evaluate and compare landslide susceptibility in a landslide-prone area in the West Black Sea Region of Turkey, using expert opinion and the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). In order to compare the results with a landslide susceptibility study undertaken previously in the same region using the artificial neural network (ANN) method, slope angle, slope aspect, topographical elevation, topographical shape, water conditions and vegetation cover parameters were taken into consideration. Experts were asked to rate their pairwise importance and their feedback was used in the AHP to produce a landslide susceptibility map of the study region. Its validity was tested using relation value (r(ij)) and the areal frequency distribution of the actual landslides in the area. The results were satisfactory and similar to those achieved in the previous ANN study. It is concluded that AHP can be a useful methodology in landslide susceptibility assessment.