journal article·2025-07-25Open access

Evaluation of the Stability of Loess Slopes by Integrating a Knowledge Graph and Dendrogram Neural Network

Yu Xiao, Tianxiao Yan, Yueqin Zhu, Dongqi Wei, Jinyuan Mao, Depin Ou

Applied Sciences· Volume 15· Issue 15

Abstract

Loess deposits in China, covering extensive regions, exhibit distinctive physical and mechanical characteristics, including collapsibility and reduced mechanical strength. These properties contribute to heightened susceptibility to slope-related geological hazards, such as landslides and collapses, in these areas. The widespread distribution and challenging prevention of these geological disasters have emerged as significant impediments to both public safety and economic development in China. Moreover, geological disaster data originates from diverse sources and exists in substantial fragmented, decentralized, and unstructured formats, including textual records and graphical representations. These datasets exhibit complex structures and heterogeneous formats yet suffer from inadequate organization and storage due to the absence of unified descriptive standards. The lack of systematic categorization and standardized representation significantly hinders effective data integration and knowledge extraction across different sources. To address these challenges, this study proposes a novel loess slope stability assessment method employing a dendrogram neural network (GNN-TreeNet) integrated with knowledge graph technology. The methodology progresses through three phases: (1) construction of a multi-domain knowledge graph integrating a large number of loess slopes with historical disaster records, instability factor relationships, and empirical parameter correlations; (2) generation of expressive node embeddings capturing inherent connections via graph neural networks; (3) development and training of the GNN-TreeNet architecture that leverages the graph’s enhanced representation capacity for stability evaluation. This structured framework enables cross-disciplinary data synthesis and interpretable slope stability analysis through a systematic integration of geological, geographical, and empirical knowledge components.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Advanced Graph Neural Networks · Landslides and related hazards · Soil and Unsaturated Flow

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

National Institute of Natural Hazards, Ministry of Emergency Management of China, Beijing 100085, China

College of Geological and Surveying Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China

Xi’an Center of Geological Survey, CGS, Xi’an 710054, China

Funding

China Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region key research and development project

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