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Arid Land Geography ›› 2026, Vol. 49 ›› Issue (4): 778-790.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2025.292

• Disaster Research • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Geological disaster risk assessment of Xinyuan County based on entropy weight-random forest optimization weighting method

LIU Jinghui(), LI Xinxu(), YUAN Xushan, LI Yanmin   

  1. School of Emergency Technology and Management, Institute of Disaster Prevention, Sanhe 065201, Hebei, China
  • Received:2025-05-22 Revised:2025-08-20 Online:2026-04-25 Published:2026-04-28
  • Contact: LI Xinxu E-mail:liujh@cidp.edu.cn;lxxmail824@163.com

Abstract:

Geological disasters frequently occur in the Ili River Basin, and Xinyuan County is among the most disaster-prone areas. This study focuses on Xinyuan County and establishes a three-dimensional indicator system encompassing the hazard of triggering factors, the susceptibility of disaster-prone environments, and the vulnerability of exposed elements. An optimized weighting scheme was developed by integrating the entropy weight method with the Random Forest model, and the comprehensive geological disaster risk of the county was evaluated using the ArcGIS platform. The results indicate that (1) After weight optimization, hazard was primarily governed by hydrodynamic factors, susceptibility was strongly controlled by topographic factors, and vulnerability was mainly determined by transportation networks and population-economic characteristics. The optimized weights yielded higher area under curve values than those obtained using the traditional entropy weight method. (2) The spatial distributions of hazard, susceptibility, and vulnerability differed significantly, corresponding to areas with complex geological conditions, gentle shaded slopes, and population-economic clusters, respectively. (3) The overall spatial pattern of geological disaster risk closely corresponded to the distribution of vulnerability, with high-risk areas concentrated in town centers and along major roads, medium-high-risk areas mainly located where disaster-prone environments overlapped with exposed elements, and low-risk areas distributed in ecologically stable zones or regions lacking significant exposed elements. (4) High-risk zones exhibited strong spatial consistency with historical disaster points and typical exposed elements, thereby confirming the rationality and reliability of the assessment results. The findings reveal the spatial distribution pattern of geological disaster risk in Xinyuan County and provide a scientific basis and theoretical reference for disaster prevention and mitigation.

Key words: risk assessment, geological disasters, entropy weight method, random forest, Xinyuan County