A novel surface deformation prediction method based on AWC-LSTM model

Severe surface deformation can damage the ecological environment, trigger geological disasters, and threaten human life and property. Reliable surface deformation prediction is conducive to reducing potential risks and mitigating disaster losses. Currently, machine learning-based surface deformation prediction models have shown significant improvements in prediction performance. However, most prediction models do not sufficiently consider the characteristics of surface deformation, exhibit subjectivity in parameter settings, and inadequately capture local features in time series data. We introduce the AWC-LSTM model to predict surface deformation. Initially, leveraging the strengths of the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model in handling linear signals, the obtained surface deformation information is decomposed to linear and nonlinear parts, and the linear part is predicted. Secondly, by incorporating convolutional neural network (CNN) layers into the long short term memory (LSTM) model, the ability to learn local features is enhanced and the whale optimization algorithm (WOA) is introduced to determine the optimal hyperparameters of the model, thereby predicting nonlinear deformation. The proposed AWC-LSTM model was validated using the Shilawusu coal mine and Beijing as case studies. The outcomes indicate that the deformation predictions for the Shilawusu coal mine and Beijing exhibit a high degree of consistency with the monitored data, with root mean square errors (RMSE) not exceeding 3 mm. This underscores the model’s reliability and applicability across different areas. Comparisons with existing prediction models indicate that the AWC-LSTM model achieves higher predictive accuracy, with an average improvement in accuracy ranging from 28.38 % to 80.59 % over other models.