Open Geosci.

2016; 8:360–370

Research Article Open Access

Abolghasem Amirahmadi, Sima Pourhashemi, Mokhtar Karami*, and Elahe Akbari

Modeling of landslide volume estimation

DOI 10.1515/geo-2016-0032 Landslide is one of the major geomorphic processes that
Received Jan 27, 2015; accepted Feb 15, 2016 has affected evolution of landscape of mountainous re-
gions and has caused disastrous incidents [6, 7]. Land-
Abstract: Mass displacement of materials such as land-
slides must be taken into consideration for urban devel-
slide is considered among problematic phenomena in Baqi
opment, because the occurrence of landslides is a regular
Basin located at southern slopes of Binaloud, Iran; since,
phenomenon, especially in the mountainous regions [8]
it destroys agricultural lands and pastures and also in-
Environmental planning consists of land evaluation and
creases deposits at the basin exit. Therefore, it is neces-
acquisition of the appropriate sites for various land uses
sary to identify areas which are sensitive to landslide and
that can be accomplished using different factors [9] The
estimate the significant volume. In the present study, in or-
geo-environmental factors evaluated for urban land use
der to estimate the volume of landslide, information about
planning [10]. The determination of the ground foun-
depth and area of slides was collected; then, consider-
dation conditions providing a useful guide for urban
ing regression assumptions, a power regression model was
planning and for planning construction and technical
given which was compared with 17 suggested models in
projects [11]. The study of these phenomena is a useful
various regions in different countries. The results showed
tool for urban and regional planning [12]. It is consid-
that values of estimated mass obtained from the suggested
ered as a bulk movement and natural hazard [13] which is
model were consistent with observed data (P value = 0.000
very destructive in slanted lands [14]. Besides, landslides
and R = 0.692) and some of the existing relations which
are created by many driving factors such as earthquakes,
implies on efficiency of the suggested model. Also, rela-
rainfall and rapid fusion of snow. They may be intensi-
tions that were created in small-area landslides were more
fied by topography, rock and soil type, fractures, substrate
suitable rather than the ones created in large-area land-
surface, humidity and human-caused reasons such as
slides for using in Baqi Basin. According to the suggested
demolition of vegetation and incorrect engineering opera-
relation, average depth value of landslides was estimated
tions [14–17].
3.314 meters in Baqi Basin which was close to the observed
As a bulk movement, landslide is defined as fast or
value, 4.609 m.
slow movement of rocks, soil particles [18] or both of
Keywords: Mass; Slides; Area; Experimental Relation; them on the slope downward which is affected by gravi-
Baqi Basin tation [19]. Natural and geological features of Iran are so
that many landslides take place in some areas every year.
In Iran, landslides cause many problems every year, such
as: destruction of roads, destruction of agricultural lands
1 Introduction
and pastures, residential areas, soil erosion and transition
a great deal of deposits to the watersheds [20]. It is impor-
Instability of natural slopes is a geomorphologic-
tant to be aware of number, area and volume of landslides
geological phenomenon that affects changing the Earth’s
in order to estimate sensitivity [21–24], determination of
surface [1]. It becomes dangerous when it impresses hu-
landslide danger [24, 25] and long-term evaluations to esti-
man actions [2, 3]. Meanwhile, landslide known as a uni-
mate bulk sensitivity [23, 26–31]. Area and number of land-
versal problem which has always brought about huge loss
slides information is simply achieved through aerial pho-
of lives and financial damage, is of great importance [4, 5].
tos, satellite images and field inspections. However, these
methods are of no use for volume determination. It is a dif-
ficult task that needs surface and subsurface geometrical
Abolghasem Amirahmadi, Sima Pourhashemi, Elahe Akbari: data from the rupture slope [17]. Gathering this informa-
Department of Geography, Hakim Sabzevari University, Sabzevar,
tion which is performed as field operations is difficult and
Iran
*Corresponding Author: Mokhtar Karami: Department of Ge- expensive and estimation of the volume of slope in steep
ography, Hakim Sabzevari University, Sabzevar, Iran; Email: hills is very challenging [23]. Thus, estimation of landslide
M.Karami08@yahoo.co.uk

© 2016 A. Amirahmadi et al., published by De Gruyter Open.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.
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Figure 1: Location of the studied area.
volume may be only carried out by taking experimental re-
lations that connects the volume to geometrical ruptures
measurements especially the area [26, 30–38]. Since, de-
posit delivery in a basin exit is very important in water-
sheds management and most of deposits are caused by
landslides on side-lines of rivers; the importance of esti-
mation of landslides volumes has to be emphasised. Some
of associated studies in which the volume through land-
slide area was estimated are mentioned in the following
references [39–45].
The landslide volumes were calculated in Iran at two
sides of a forest road in north of the country and investi-
gated the effect of slide points in terms of their contribu-
tion in deposit production. It was concluded that 35 per
cents of total soil displacement had been caused by land-
slides [46].
In a study titled as estimation of landslides volumes
based on area in local scale in Mazandaran Province sug-
gested an experimental relationship and concluded that
the estimated volume for Mazandaran Province was ac-
ceptably consistent with observatory data and some of ex-
isting relations which had proved its efficiency [17]. The
mathematical relations were obtained between area and
mass of bulk slides in Saein Col of Nir Town [18]. They used
Modeling of landslide volume estimation | 361
existing relations for their investigations and concluded
that under any circumstances, there is a meaningful re-
lationship between the volume and area of the slid bulk
and new relations are a beginning to calibrate magnitude
of slides. A reference [47] investigated the slide area and
overburden volume of Khaleneje Tunnel falling bulk based
on geophysical measurements. The effective volume of in-
stable falling bulk was estimated to be 3400000 m3 that
proved the possibility of landslide in the vicinity of the
second tunnel of Khalenje in near future [47]. Hence, con-
sidering the significance of deposit volume caused by bulk
erosion and also expensive and time-consuming field op-
erations.
The main objective of the present study is to examine
the relation between volume and landslide area to find an
experimental model for estimating volume at Baqi Basin
which then can be applied for similar basin.
An effort is made to incorporate for the first time plan-
ning parameters as natural hazard assessment map such
as landslide in conjunction with other geomorphological
parameters, beside the commonly used factors.
2 The studied region
Neyshabour Baqi Basin is placed in the main catchment
area of Central Desert (one of the six basins of Khorasan
Province) in Iran. It expands from 59” 38 ’58∘ to 13” 44’ 58∘
longitudes and from 09” 31’ 58∘ to 30” 38’ 36∘ latitudes; in
southern slops of Binaloud Mountains in Iran (Figure 1).
Baqi Basin is in north of Neyshabour, placed in Sarve-
layat Division. Villages of Bojno Olia and Sofla, Ghorune
and Baqi are placed in the studied region. The studied re-
gion limits from west to Barmahan Village, from south to
Bar Village and from southwest to Tangeh Olia Village. To-
tal area of basin is 6367 hectares and its average altitude
is 2209 metres with maximum of 2880 m and minimum of
1720 m. Lowlands contain deposits of floodwater plains in
two sides of the rivers.
3 Materials and methods
In this research, in order to provide landslide informa-
tion, some questionnaires were used which were made by
Landslide Investigations Group, Basins Studies and As-
sessment Office, Department of Watershed Management.
The questionnaires contained information such as geo-
graphical location, length, width and type of landslides.
Field operations were carried out to identify and record the
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362 | A. Amirahmadi et al.
existing landslides and also to calculate depth of slides.
Figure 2 illustrates distribution of landslides in Baqi Basin.
Figure 2: Landslides distribution in Baqi Basin.
Statistical specifications of data were calculated by
SPSS 18 after being controlled in terms of correctness and
quality in Microsoft Excel Software.
In order to suggest an experimental relation to esti-
mate the volume of recorded landslides, the only ones
were chosen that had complete area and volume informa-
tion. Thus, data of 44 observed landslides including longi-
tude, latitude and area was given to SPSS Software to set a
relationship between area (A L ) and volume (V L ). In order
to model the experimental relation of A L & V L , consider-
ing existing statistical relations, general form of this model
was used:
V L = ε × A αL
Finally, in order to estimate the volume of landslide
by area information considering regression assumptions,
a power regression model was obtained. In this relation,
the observed mass is given by multiplication of slide area
and depth which was obtained from Remote Sensing cal-
culations and GIS.
Various experimental power relations have been em-
ployed for landslide volume calculations by researchers at
locations in different countries. To evaluate these relations
in the study area, the numbers of landslides and the as-
sociated area with calculated volume are given in Table 1.
These relations were applied for 44 observed landslides ar-
eas in the basin. The Volume values calculated by these
relations were compared with the volume of observational
landslide of the basin.
At last, a statistical improved model for Baqi Basin
was also compared with relations of Table 1. Comparison
was made through coefficient of determination (R2 ), per-
centiles statistics values, maximum, minimum and aver-
age and the Root Mean Square Errors (RMSE).
3.1 Coeflcient of Determination R2
R2 was used to choose the best relation and compare it
with other relations.
n
⎛ ∑︀ ⎞2
(p i − p) (o i − o)
⎜ i=1
R2 = ⎜
⎟
n
⎟ (1)
2
⎝ ∑︀ ⎠
(p i − p)
i=1
Where, o is the average of observed volumes; p is the av-
erage calculated volume; o i is the observed volume value,
p i is the calculated volume and n is number of the vari-
ables [17]. The closer R2 value to 1 indicates more correla-
tion of actual (observed) and calculated data [48]. In order
to use R2 , the observed value of landslides area was placed
in the relation and the associated volume was calculated;
then, each value was compared with observed value of vol-
ume and the explanation coefficient was evaluated.
3.2 Percentile statistics values, maximum,
minimum and average
After calculation of volume values for all recorded land-
slides in the studied region by means of various experi-
mental relations and the suggested relation for Baqi Basin,
statistics of 25%, 50% and 75% of total slides volumes,
minimum, maximum and average of estimated volumes
were calculated.
3.3 Root Mean Square Error (RMSE)
RMSE indicates efficiency of a model. It can be calculated
as the second root of mean square of subtraction of calcu-
lated and observed values. Slide area was placed in each
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 Modeling of landslide volume estimation | 363

Table 1: Experimental relations for calculation of landslide volume by means of area.

Number Maximum AL Minimum AL Equation Source

207 1.9 × 105 2.3 × 100 V L = 0.1479A L 1.368 Simonett (1967)
29 2 × 102 2.1 × 100 V L = 0.234A L 1.11 Rice (1969)
53 6 × 107 2 × 105 V L = 0.242A L 1.250 Abele (1974)
30 5 × 102 3 × 101 V L = 0.0329A L 1.385 Innes (1983)
45 3.9 × 106 4 × 104 V L = 0.769A L 1.250 Whitehouse (1983) [51]
1019 1.6 × 104 5 × 101 V L = 1.826A L 0.898 Larsen and Sanchez (1998)
615 5.2 × 104 2 × 102 V L = 1.0359A L 0.880 Martin et al. (2002)
124 1/2 × 105 7 × 102 V L = 0.1549A L 1.0905 Guthrie and Evans (2004)
23 - > 1 × 106 V L = 0.00004A L 1.307 Korup (2005b)
65 3.9 × 1010 3 × 105 V L = 12.273A L 1.047 Haflidason et al. (2005)
160 2 × 108 5 × 105 V L = 4.655A L 1.292 Tenbrink (2006)
51 3 × 103 1 × 101 V L = 0.39A L 1.131 Imaizumi and Sidle (2007)
539 1 × 109 1 × 101 V L = 0.0844A L 1.4324 Guzzetti et al. (2008)
11 4 × 103 5 × 101 V L = 0.19A L 1.19 Imaizumi et al. (2008)
37 1.5 × 103 1.1 × 101 V L = 0.328A L 1.104 Rice and Foggin (1971)
677 1 × 109 2 × 100 V L = 0.074A L 1.450 Guzzetti (2009) [50]
442 1.085 × 106 1.23 × 102 V L = 0.0974A L 1.176 Omidvar and Kavian (2011)

experimental relation, the slide volume was calculated; 3.4.2 Estimating the Mean Depth of Landslides in the
and then, according to Equation 2, the model with the least area for evaluating the model
RMSE value was chosen as the best one.
⎯
⎸ n After evaluating the given model, this model was used for
⎸ (o i − p i )2 estimating the mean size of landslides. Then the mean
⎸ ∑︀
depth of landslides in the area were calculated and com-
⎷ i=1
RMSE = (2)
n pared with mean depth of observational data and depths
Where n is number of variables, o i is the observed land- obtained from different models.
slide volume, p i is the estimated landslide volume by each
relation [49].
4 Results
3.4 Estimating the Depth of Landslide 4.1 Statistical Specifications of Geometrical
3.4.1 Estimating the depth of landslides observed in the
Data in Landslides
area for estimating the model
After collecting the data required from surveys, first their
accuracy and quality were controlled and then their statis-
Field and surveying methods have been used to estimate
tical properties were calculated and provided in Table 2.
the depth observed in the landslides of the region, because
According to the results of this table, landslides in the
some regions are impassable, so it was impossible con-
Baghi area are in a relatively wide range of area, size and
ducting field studies. Therefore there has been used of re-
depth, such that their area (A L ) was in the range between
mote sensing and ASTER satellite images as well as the
1.5 × 104 m2 ≤ A L ≤ 2 × 106 m2 . The observational vol-
pair of left and right satellite images in these images and
ume or size of landslides (V L ) was in the range between
Digital Elevation Model, 2003 and digital elevation model
1 × 103 m3 ≤ V L ≤ 8.4 × 106 m3 and their depth (D L ) was
from topographical maps with scale of 1:50000 (prepared
in the range of 0.1 m ≤ D L ≤ 13.85 m. This wide range may
from aerial photographs, 1956). Because landslides have
increase the standard deviation (SD) followed by variation
been occurred in this area during these years and at 70s,
coefficient for each parameter.
the observational depth was calculated by reducing both
layers of 2003 and 1956 DEM from each other.

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364 | A. Amirahmadi et al.

Table 2: Descriptive statistics related to range of geometric parameters, volume and depth of landslides in the Baghi Area.

Data No. Mean Min Max SD Var. Skewness Stretch

type
Area 44 280852.27 15000 m2 2000000 m2 332420.625 1.105E11 16.446 3.517
m2
Depth 44 4.06939 m 0.1 m 13.858 m 2.879654 8.292 2.019 1.315
Volume 44 1260190.00 10000 m3 8400000 m3 1941738.387 3.770E12 6.639 2.618
m3

Table 3: The estimative and field depth. Because all calculations and results of this study are
based on data observed in the region, therefore one can
Slide No. Depth estimated (m) Field depth (m) see the importance of observational data more. This can
2 1.92 1.863 be clear more for a part of data with lower frequency or
4 1.4 0.998 not being seen in the observational data; because using a
13 0.52 0.435 part of with frequent data – in this study areas between 1 ×
19 2 1.811 105 m2 < A L < 5×106 m2 , one can extract the relationships
20 5.2 6.534 between volume and area for a part with lower data.
22 4 3.914
31 4 3.637
41 5 3.415 4.2 Calculating the Depth of Observational
Landslides (44 samples) by Remote
Table 4: Correlation between field and estimated depth. Sensing and GIS
Estimated Field Because there are no observational data for depth, we de-
.915** 1 Pearson Correlation cided to calculate the observational depth of landslides by
.001 Sig. (2-tailed) Field remote sensing and GIS. In addition, to ensure the relia-
8 8 N bility of data, by selecting 8 sites for landslide out of 44
1 .915** Pearson Correlation landslides occurred in the region and field studies, the ac-
.001 Sig. (2-tailed) Estimated curacy of calculation depth were estimated (Table 3). On
8 8 N the other hand, to determine the accuracy and reliability
** . Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). of calculation data, correlation between estimated depth
and observational field depth (Table 4 and Figure 3) ob-
According to above models, by estimating the volume tained by confidence of 99%, R2 : 0.84 and correlation rate
based on results of this study for descriptive statistics of of 0.92, we can confide to depth data calculated by remote
range of data, volume and depth of landslides (Table 2), sensing and GIS.
increased variation coefficient, skewness and stretch of
data, it maybe indicate the abnormality of data. It must
be however noted that the size of landslides occurred in 4.3 Developing a Statistic Model for Baghi
the nature are different and a landslide can even cover 1 Area
square meter or a few cubic meters to several km2 or km3
of an area or a volume of a soil in a region, such that the Figure 5 indicates No. 44 of landslide with complete data
range of area as indicated in the study of reference [50] was of area (A L ) and volume (V L ), in a diagram with Log-Log
between 2 m2 to 1 × 109 m2 and or maximum area of land- UTM coordinates. According to Figure 5, the frequency of
slides studied in [43] obtained to 3.9 × 10110 m2 and in such slides is higher in the area range between 100000 m2 to
cases this range of changes may increase the mentioned 1000000 m2 and volumetric range between 500000 m2
coefficients. Therefore higher variation coefficient, skew- to 5000000 m3 . The model exhibits lack of fit for small
ness and stretch may not be a reason for reduced statistical very values of area and volume. Physical review of Fig-
quality of data used in this study. ure 4 indicates an exponential relation in different values
between A L and V L ; with axis indicated in log UTM coor-

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Figure 3: Diagram of correlation coeflcient between field and
estimated depth.
Figure 5: Experimental equation obtained between area and volume for landslides present in the area.
dinates. Exponential regression fitness on the data of ob-
servational area and volume finally resulted in creation of
Equation (3).
V L = 2.482 × A1.024
L (3)
2
R = 0.99
Where; A L is the area (m2 ); V L is the volume (m3 ). This
exponential model can be used for estimating the size of
mass movements of slide type, with known interrupted
range area.
Studying the diagram obtained for calculating the size
of landslides indicate that despites showing data in log-
Modeling of landslide volume estimation | 365
Figure 4: Diagram of exponential regression fitness on area and
volume data.
log UTM coordinates, there can be more seen the observa-
tional data far from the given fitness line related to regres-
sion equation.
4.4 Evaluating the Model Provided
To evaluate the calculation values of size of landslide by
related equation, these values were compared to volumet-
ric estimations by other equations (Table 1). Figure 6 indi-
cates the results of such comparison in the frame of a cal-
culating the statistics values of 25, 50 and 75%, min, max
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366 | A. Amirahmadi et al.

Table 5: Exponential Regression Data.

Dependent Variable: Volume

Equation Model Summary Parameter Estimates
R Square F df1 df2 Sig. Constant b1
dimension1 Power .692 92.034 1 41 .000 2.482 1.024
The independent variable is Area.

Figure 6: Comparing the statistics of 25%, 50%, 75%, min, max, mea of volumes estimated by different equations and equations provided
in Baghi area.

and total mean of data estimated by different experimental
equations as well as equation provided for Baghi area.
After calculating the size of landslides in the Baghi
area, the diagram for range of area determined (Table 1)
were drawn by different equations (Figure 7).
According to Figures 6 and 7, it can confirm that equa-
tions like references [30, 33, 39] were relatively in good
conformity to diagram of this study (equation 3); however,
models developed by [35, 41, 42] , have relatively lower esti-
mation than developed equation. In the above area range,
of course, there were also developed some models like [31,
36, 37, 50] with relatively higher estimations than equa-
tions provided here. As indicated in Figure 4, for equa-
tion developed by [37, 43] for very great landslides (Ta-
ble 1), the minimum predicted volume by such equations
was 91.289279 m3 and 1157256.40 m3 ; while minimum ob-
served volume in the province was 10000 m3 and mini-
mum volume calculated by related equation was 15000 m3
and was almost reliable estimation. As mentioned above,
such limitation for maximum data can be also seen in the
equations like [35, 41, 42].
4.5 Statistical comparing the Developed
Model with Other Models
Each different model as introduced in Table 1 were used
for 44 landslides present in the Baghi area and data pre-
dicted by each equation were comparing to observational
data by standard coefficient and Chi-Square Errors (RMSE)
(Table 6).
Results for standard coefficient indicated that there is
a significant correlation in the confidence level of 99% be-
tween predicted values by all these equations with obser-
vational volume. Because standard coefficient can accu-
rately indicate the accuracy of different equations, there-
fore RMSE was also used. As indicated in Table 4, be-
sides equation developed by this study, according to [38]
has a lower RMSE value than other equations followed
by [30, 34, 39], having predictions relatively close to the
observational data.

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 Modeling of landslide volume estimation | 367

Table 6: Results for studying the values of standard coeflcient and RMSE between observed and predicted data by different relations.

Experimental This Guz Sim Inn Guth Kor Ima. Guz. Ima
equations study (2009) (1967) (1983) (2004) (2005) (2007) (2008) (2008)
Standard 0.646 0.574 0.59 0.587 0.638 0.476 0.633 0.577 0.623
coeflcient
(sig.) 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
RMSE 1.245 15.757 9.165 1.785 2.097 10.730 1.500 13.794 1.443
× 106 × 106 × 106 × 106 × 106 × 106 × 106 × 106 × 106

Experimental Ric. Abe Whi. Lar. Mar Haf. Ric. Ten. Omi.
equations (1971) (1974). (1983) (1998) (2002). (2005) (1969) (2006) (2011)
Standard 0.637 0.602 0.613 0.655 0.656 0.644 0.636 0.605 0626
coeflcient
(sig.) 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
RMSE 1.805 5.798 8.942 2.129 2.221 8.241 1.910 116.148 3.118
× 106 × 106 × 106 × 106 × 106 × 106 × 106 × 106 × 106

Figure 7: Diagram of different experimental equations as well as diagram obtained by this study.

4.6 Calculating the mean depth of
landslides in the area
According to the similarity between equation obtained for
determining the size of landslides in the Baghi area (Equa-
tion 3) with equations developed internationally (Table 1)
as well as relative conformity of these equations with equa-
tions obtained, it seems that this developed model include
an acceptable model for predicting the volume of land-
slides. Therefore, the volumetric mean for 44 landslides
with given data have been estimated by using the equa-
tion developed by this study equal to 922658.42 m3 . Ac-
cording to mean area for these landslides, the mean depth
for landslides in Baghi area was estimated about 3.314 m.

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368 | A. Amirahmadi et al.
Figure 8: Values for depth of landslides by using different equations.
Because mean depth for these 44 landslides was also esti-
mated about 4.06 m, therefore it can be seen a slight dif-
ference between observed depth and depth calculated by
this equation.
These calculations were also conducted for different
relations and mean depth was calculated based on mean
volume predicted by any equation (Figure 8). As indicated
in Figure 8, the equations with higher predictions for mean
total volume of slides, they seemed to have higher depth
as well. For equations with lower predictions however, the
calculated depth is lower than observed depth.
5 Conclusions
Results from this study indicated that the equation devel-
oped for Baghi area are in good conformity to some equa-
tions developed by others internationally. Because these
equations presented in study areas with different local and
physiographical conditions than Baghi area as well as for
different ranges of areas, therefore, this conformity indi-
cates that the relation between volume and area of land-
slide is basically geometrical and independent from local
and physiographical conditions. In final conclusion, ac-
cording to statistical accuracy of model provided and its
conformity to some other models as well as benefiting from
results of this model from data obtained through whole
area, this model can be considered as a desirable model
for Baghi area and for calculating the size of landslides in
the northeastern part of Iran; and because of lack of such
models in the country, this study can be used as an intro-
duction for developing the models estimating the volume
and other morphometric parameters for landslide. By de-
veloping this model, when calculating the area of a land-
slide, one can find its volume and depth. By providing this
model indeed, one can save the cost and time for calculat-
ing the volume and depth of landslide. Because equations
with higher priority have some predictions with higher
and lower mean than observational data and because even
lower difference between means when a study area is wide
with higher landslides, may cause high changes in the to-
tal volume of region, therefore it can be concluded that it is
necessary to develop a unique equation for each region, if
there are data for volume and area of landslides. Therefore
it is recommended to design and develop such models for
regions susceptible to landslide through the country hav-
ing such data.
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