Logistic regression methods have been widely used for landslide research. However, previous studies have seldom paid attention to the frequent occurrence of spatial autocorrelated residuals in regression models, which indicate a model misspecification problem and unreliable results. This study accounts for spatial autocorrelation by implementing eigenvector spatial filtering (ESF) into logistic regression for landslide susceptibility assessment. Based on a landslide inventory map and 11 landslide predisposing factors, we developed the eigenvector spatial filtering-based logistic regression (ESFLR) model, as well as a conventional logistic regression (LR) model and an autologistic regression (ALR) model for comparison. The three models were evaluated and compared in terms of their prediction capability and model fit. The ESFLR model performed better than the other two models. The overall predictive accuracy of the ESFLR model was 90.53%, followed by the ALR model (76.21%) and the LR model (74.76%), and the areas under the ROC curves for the ESFLR, ALR and LR models were 0.957, 0.828 and 0.818, respectively. The ESFLR model adequately addressed the spatial autocorrelation of residuals by reducing the Moran's I value of the residuals to 0.0270. In conclusion, the ESFLR model is an effective and flexible method for landslide analysis.implies that these models failed to explain all of the spatial patterns inherent in the landslide data, and may have led to misspecification errors in the model.This study attempted to eliminate the negative influence of spatial autocorrelation on landslide susceptibility assessments by introducing eigenvector spatial filtering (ESF) into logistic regression. Spatial filtering, as discussed by Getis [21,22] and Griffith [23], was considered to be an effective approach for addressing spatial autocorrelation. The ESF method proposed by Griffith, utilizes eigenvectors generated from a given spatial connectivity matrix to account for redundant locational information resulting from spatial autocorrelation [24]. Several significant eigenvectors selected with a stepwise regression procedure are added to the linear regression model as independent variables to filter the spatial autocorrelation out from the regression residuals.This study was conducted in Wulong county and involved four main steps. First, the predisposing factors responsible for landslide occurrence were determined. Subsequently, landslide susceptibility models were developed. Then, evaluations were conducted and comparisons were made between the ESF-based logistic regression model and other models, including ordinary logistic regression and autologistic regression, to assess model performance. Finally, the models were employed to map landslide susceptibility throughout the study area.
Study Area and Data
Study AreaThe study area of Wulong county is located in the southeast section of the Chongqing Municipality (Figure 1) between longitudes (107 • 14 ) E and (108 • 5 ) E and latitudes (29 • 2 ) N and (29 • 40 ) N, and covers an a...