Landslide mapping using satellite imagery and machine learning algorithms

Cyclone Idai made landfall on 15th March near Beira, Mozambique, and caused heavy rainfall across Mozambique, Malawi, Madagascar, and eastern Zimbabwe. Chimanimani District of Zimbabwe received 200 to 400 mm rainfall between 15th and 19th March, which caused widespread flooding and triggered thousands of landslides. This study aims to map the landslides in Chimanimani District and differentiate concurrent flooding from the landslides using high resolution PlanetScope imagery and DEM. Three machine learning algorithms namely, Random Forest, Artificial Neural Network, and Support Vector Machine have been deployed for the supervised landslide classification.