Acta Geotechnica

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-023-01988-0 (0123456789().,-volV)(0123456789().
,- volV)

RESEARCH PAPER

Short-term rockburst prediction in underground project: insights

from an explainable and interpretable ensemble learning model
Yingui Qiu1 • Jian Zhou1

Received: 11 December 2022 / Accepted: 23 June 2023

 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023

Abstract
Rockburst is a frequent challenge during tunnel and other underground construction and is an extreme rock damage
phenomenon. Therefore, it is very crucial to accurately estimate the damage potential of rockburst events. Microseismic
(MS) monitoring can be used to obtain the relevant MS parameters for short-term rockburst prediction in real time that
reflect the evolution of short-term rockburst. In this study, short-term rockburst potential data containing 7 MS parameters
(cumulative number of events, cumulative released energy, cumulative apparent volume, event rate, energy rate, apparent
volume rate, and incubation time) and 91 rockburst events (none rockburst, low rockburst, moderate rockburst, and high
rockburst) were collected from the Jinping Hydropower Station diversion tunnel project in China. The objective of this
paper is to propose an ensemble learning (EML) model based on the LévyFlight-Jaya optimization (LFJaya) and fivefold
cross-validation (CV) method to achieve an accurate prediction of short-term rockburst damage potential using MS
information. The EML consists of light gradient boosting machine (LGBM), extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost),
random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), and logistic regression (LR), with seven MS parameters as the EML
inputs and four rockburst levels as target variables. 70% and 30% of the cases were randomly selected for training and
testing, respectively. Five metrics (accuracy, kappa, precision, recall, and F1-score) and nonparametric statistical tests were
used to evaluate the performance of the model. It can be observed from the results of this study that the proposed EML has
a higher test accuracy (89.29%) than the multiple base classifiers used in the study. With the use of the ensemble model, the
decision boundary becomes more precise and overfitting is significantly improved. Additionally, the internal decision-
making process of EML was elucidated through an analysis of the model parameters using SHapley Additive exPlanations
(SHAP) and Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME). It was discovered that the cumulative released
energy, the number of MS events, and the cumulative apparent volume (which reflects the number and strength of rock
fractures) exert a significant influence on the prediction of short-term rockburst potential. Finally, developed graphical user
interface (GUI) accurately predicted six instances of rockburst in the deeply buried tunnel of Jinping. Verification results
indicated that the proposed EML exhibits strong generalization and can effectively utilize MS information to achieve
precise short-term rockburst potential predictions.

Keywords Ensemble learning  Graphical user interface  Lévy-Jaya  LIME  Model interpretation  SHAP value 
Short-term rockburst

1 Introduction

Rockburst is a typical and challenging geohazard often

encountered during mining or engineering excavation at
& Jian Zhou
j.zhou@csu.edu.cn; csujzhou@hotmail.com great depth [99]. It is described as an extreme phenomenon
of sudden rock failure caused by the strong release of
Yingui Qiu
225501014@csu.edu.cn accumulated elastic energy in a rock mass in a high-stress
environment underground [9]. Since it was first reported in
1
School of Resources and Safety Engineering, Central South the England Tin Mine in 1738, rockburst has been
University, Changsha 410083, China

123

recognized as one of the most serious and hazardous geo-
logical hazards [19]. The impacts of rockburst can be
devastating, including injuries to underground workers,
damage to engineering equipment, and interruption of
underground operations. Rockburst accidents have occur-
red in many mining countries around the world, with over
15 mines in Canada reporting cases of rockburst [6], 172
recorded rockburst events in the US between 1936 and
1993 [55], and many mines in China reporting related
destruction events [61, 98, 106]. In particular, during the
construction of the Jinping II Hydropower Station tunnel in
China, hundreds of rockburst events of varying degrees
occurred [19, 78]. Additionally, intense rockburst danger
events have also occurred in Peru, Japan, Norway, and
Switzerland [19, 57]. In summary, rockburst is a complex
and destructive rock instability phenomenon influenced by
various internal and external factors, which restricts the
development of underground engineering [58]. To date,
preventing and mitigating rockburst has become a critical
issue for underground engineering worldwide, particularly
for the mining industry, due to its complexity. As the depth
of underground engineering increases, identifying and
controlling the potential risks of rockburst becomes more
challenging. To accurately estimate the actual destructive
potential of rockburst events, continuous research on var-
ious prediction strategies and technologies is required.
Over the years, numerous scholars have conducted
extensive research on the prediction and triggering mech-
anisms of rockbursts. Many related results have been
achieved, and although it is not possible to completely
control rockburst incidents, they can be predicted with
accuracy to enable proactive measures aimed at reducing
risks. It is important to note that the prediction of rock-
bursts is typically divided into two categories: long-term
and short-term prediction [99]. Long-term prediction refers
to preliminary assessments of the rockburst trend in the
early stages of underground engineering, which are critical
for initial construction guidance. Methods used in long-
term rockburst prediction include empirical index criterion
methods, numerical simulation methods, and intelligent
modeling methods [2, 98]. These empirical criteria for
single or multiple indicators are proposed based on the
understanding of the mechanism of rockburst induction.
They determine different rockburst thresholds for predic-
tion based on existing field empirical data. Although the
empirical criterion methods are simple and easy to operate,
they have the limitation of poor applicability. The numer-
ical simulation methods have also been used to carry out a
lot of work related to rockburst prediction, but their sim-
ulations are sensitive to model inputs, and it is difficult to
simulate the real dynamic behavior of rockburst [98]. In
recent years, with the rapid development of soft computing
technology, rockburst risk assessment has entered a new
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Acta Geotechnica
intelligent stage. Given that rockbursts have numerous
inducing factors and complex nonlinear relationships, tra-
ditional methods cannot achieve the accuracy required for
prediction. Therefore, efficient modern nonlinear science
and artificial intelligence methods are gradually being
introduced into rockburst risk assessment. Since Feng et al.
[18] predicted roadway rockbursts by neural networks
learning and adaptive identification methods in 1994, many
intelligent models have been gradually applied to rockburst
prediction [5, 98]. These methods have achieved better
rockburst prediction results by utilizing feature information
and data rules that are difficult to identify using traditional
methods.
Short-term rockburst prediction, on the other hand,
mainly uses on-site measured data to establish a suit-
able mathematical model that predicts and warns of the
rockburst phenomenon, determines the location and timing
of rockburst in the area, and provides more accurate
guidance for construction. Through appropriate on-site
monitoring methods that reflect the development mecha-
nism and evolution law of rockburst, useful feature infor-
mation can be obtained. Major on-site monitoring methods
for early warning signal monitoring and short-term rock-
burst risk identification include microgravity, infrared
thermal imaging, electromagnetic radiation, acoustic
emission, microseismic monitoring, and the photoelastic
method, etc. [3, 17, 64, 80, 93]. Microseismic (MS) mon-
itoring technology is capable of detecting early signs of
damage and structural deformation, and it is one of the
most widely utilized methods in this regard [92]. Specifi-
cally, MS monitoring is a technique that can effectively
capture elastic waves that are released during the formation
of microcracks in rock. By analyzing the captured wave-
form, this technology can provide valuable information
regarding the spatial and temporal distribution of microc-
racks and the deformation patterns associated with them.
As an important means of rockburst monitoring, MS
monitoring has been increasingly used in engineering and
is of great significance for early warning and prediction of
rockburst hazards [21, 24, 51]. Many scholars have con-
ducted research related to rockburst-induced mechanisms
and rockburst prediction by microseismic monitoring
methods. Some microseismic parameters (e.g., apparent
volume, energy index, b-value, number of microseismic
events, event rate, and maximum magnitude) have been
developed to predict rockburst risk problems [44]. Brady
and Leighton [7] recorded seismic activity information
before and after a moderate-intensity rockburst at Star
Mine in Burke, Idaho. Mendecki [56] recommends quan-
tifying potential rock instability through relevant seismic
parameters and finds that rock instability (rockbursts, etc.)
is preceded by precursory features such as an increase in
cumulative apparent volume and a decrease in the energy
Acta Geotechnica
index and Schmidt number. Alcott et al. [3] used a method
based on microseismic parameters such as microseismic
energy, apparent stress, and seismic moment to evaluate
rockburst hazards. Tang and Xia [75] obtained that the
probability of rockburst occurrence was reduced when the
ratio of the stiffness of the microseismic nucleation zone to
the stiffness of the surrounding rock outside the nucleation
zone was less than 0 based on the microseismic activity law
of the Dongguashan Copper Mine. Chen et al. [12] selected
microseismic energy as the evaluation index of rockburst
intensity and proposed a new quantitative classification
method to divide rockburst into five intensity levels. Xu
et al. [84] found that the concentration of microseismic
events can be used as an effective precursory feature of
strain-type rockbursts, with a prediction accuracy of 63%
in 2240 rockburst cases. Ma et al. [53] found that the
b-values of the Creighton and Kidd mines began to decline
before the main shock and increased significantly near or
during the main shock, indicating that there was an
inflection point in the b-value, which can be used as a
precursor to assess the risk of the main shock. Xue et al.
[88] evaluated the risk of rockburst using the number of
daily events N and b-value and found that rockbursts were
more likely when (lgN)/b was greater than 1. With the
accumulation of information based on microseismic mon-
itoring, the intelligent model method is helpful for the
evaluation of short-term rockburst [61]. Heal [28] collected
254 sets of rockburst data from multiple underground
mines in Australia and Canada. According to the obtained
excavation vulnerability potential index and the peak par-
ticle velocity of microseismic parameters, the logistic
regression method was used to evaluate the potential fail-
ure probability of rockburst. Based on the rockburst data
established by Heal, Zhou et al. [102] evaluated the rock-
burst damage by the stochastic gradient boosting method,
and the test accuracy was 61.22%. The model analysis
shows that peak particle velocity is the most important
variable among the features of rockburst failure classifi-
cation. Li et al. [43] considered seven input parameters
affecting rockburst failure, fused the damage levels R2 and
R3, and then combined the rock engineering system para-
digm and neural network algorithm to evaluate rockburst.
Feng et al. [22] used six parameters based on MS moni-
toring to evaluate rockburst by combining the mean impact
value algorithm, improved firefly algorithm, and proba-
bilistic neural network. Based on 6–7 microseismic
parameters, Liang et al. [44, 45] evaluated rockburst
through a variety of ensemble learning algorithms and
ensemble classifiers, and well-predicted the risk of rock-
burst. Li et al. [42] used five microseismic parameters to
construct a Bayesian network model for dynamic early
warning of rockburst. Through analysis, it was found that
moment magnitude and seismic energy have a significant
impact. Yin et al. [89] proposed an optimized convolu-
tional neural network to evaluate rockburst intensity using
400 rockburst cases based on microseismic monitoring and
obtained 91.67% accuracy in rockburst prediction.
In this study, various intelligent models currently used
for rockburst prediction have been classified into six cat-
egories: hybrid models (such as combining two or more
soft computing methods), fuzzy computing, optimization
algorithms, general machine learning (ML) methods (such
as K-nearest neighbors, Naive Bayes, and SVM, etc.),
ensemble learning, and neural networks. Figure 1 depicts
the number of studies utilizing these intelligent models in
rockburst prediction in the last decade. It is evident that the
use of methods like ML, ensemble learning, and neural
networks has significantly increased over the past decade.
In particular, there is a growing interest in using ensemble
learning in rockburst prediction, indicating its robustness.
Moreover, Table 1 provides a brief statistic of the research
on intelligent prediction of long/short-term rockburst.
Many scholars have extensively explored this field, and the
table shows that there is significantly less research on
short-term rockburst prediction. Although ensemble
learning methods have gained considerable attention [67],
there is a lack of research on short-term rockburst risk
prediction using these methods.
In summary, while research on rockburst assessment has
achieved many results, there are still some shortcomings in
short-term rockburst risk prediction, and the related accu-
racy needs to be improved. Considering that rockburst
problems are influenced by various factors unique to
underground engineering, their complexity results in sig-
nificant limitations in the performance of single models in
their prediction. To improve the data mining ability and
stability of the basic models, compensate for the short-
comings of each classifier, and reduce the risk of selecting
inaccurate classifiers in short-term rockburst evaluation,
this paper used seven parameters from MS monitoring as
inputs and built an interpretable EML model based on the
LFJaya method. The applicability of the EML model in
short-term rockburst prediction was discussed, and GUI
interface was established to assist the EML model in the
evaluation of short-term rockburst potential.
2 Methodology
2.1 Lévy flights-Jaya algorithm
It is well known that the optimization of model hyperpa-
rameters is a complex problem, and a suitable heuristic
algorithm Jaya was used to complete this work in this
paper. It is worth noting that population-based heuristic
algorithms typically require specific control parameters,
123

Fig. 1 Applications of different intelligent models in rockburst prediction
such as the convergence factor and weight coefficient in the
whale optimization algorithm (WOA), or flight frequency,
foraging probability, and acceleration coefficient in the
bird swarm algorithm (BSA), in addition to common con-
trol parameters such as population size and iteration
number [65]. The adjustment of these specific parameters is
a crucial aspect that directly affects the performance of
related algorithms. However, Jaya does not depend on any
specific algorithm parameters, making it a flexible
approach for optimization.
Considering this fact, Jaya was selected as the opti-
mization method in this study. Jaya is a simple and pow-
erful swarm intelligence optimization algorithm proposed
by scholar Rao in 2016 [65]. In recent years, it has been
used to solve many related optimization problems with and
without constraints [68, 105]. The basic idea is to move the
solution individuals closer to the best ones and keep them
away from the worst ones in the search. That is, to
approach the corresponding optimal solution while moving
away from the worst solution to improve the quality of the
solution through continuous improvement. Suppose the
initial number of populations generated by Jaya in the
search space is N (j = 1, 2, …, N), the variable dimension is
M (i = 1, 2, …, M), and the number of iterations is t. The
value of the i-th variable of the j-th candidate solution in
the t-th iteration is denoted by Xi,j,t, and then the formula
for generating the new solution is:
  
0
Xi;j;t ¼ Xi;j;t þ ri;t;1 Xi;best;t  Xi;j;t 
  
 ri;t;2 Xi;worst;t  Xi;j;t  ð1Þ
where r1 and r2 are random numbers between 0 and 1
(uniformly distributed), Xi,best represents the value of
variable i for the best candidate solution, Xi,worst represents
the value of variable i for the worst candidate solution,
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Acta Geotechnica
  
ri;t;1 Xi;best;t  Xi;j;t  denotes the trend of the current target
solution toward the best solution, and
  
ri;t;2 Xi;worst;t  Xi;j;t  denotes the trend of the current
solution away from the worst solution.
Heuristic algorithms are essentially stochastic processes
as seen from the point of view of the research, and these
stochasticities are used for the algorithms to perform better
spatial search. To be able to better extract the optimal
parameters of the classifiers, this paper introduces the Lévy
flight mechanism into the Jaya algorithm to enhance its
ability to escape from local optima [29]. The Lévy Flight is
named after the French mathematician Paul Pierre Lévy
[30]. It refers to a random walk with a heavy-tailed prob-
ability distribution of the step size, that is, there is a rela-
tively high probability of a large step in the process of a
random walk. Figure 2 shows an example of a three-di-
mensional Lévy flight. It can be seen that after a number of
steps, it will jump suddenly, avoiding local stagnation.
Mathematically, the basic form of the Lévy distribution
is defined as:
LðsÞ  jsj1b ; 0\b  2 ð2Þ
where s denotes the step size and b denotes the power
exponent of the Lévy distribution, is 1.5. The step size s for
the Lévy flight is as follows:
s ¼ u=jvj1=b ð3Þ
where u and v are random numbers of normal distribution,
   
respectively, are as follows: u  N 0; r2u and v  N 0; r2v .
ru and rv are defined as follows (C denotes the gamma
function):
Acta Geotechnica

Table 1 Some of the applications of intelligent models in long/short-term rockburst prediction

Authors Method Type Parameters Data Interpretability CV Accuracy
(%)

Li et al. [41] BO-FNN Long rh, rc, rt, rh/rc, rc/ 314 No Yes 90.48
rt,Wet
Sun et al. [73] Ensemble Long rh, rc, rt, rh/rc, rc/ 275 No Yes 85.59
rt,Wet
Kadkhodaei GEP Long rh/rc, rc/rt,Wet 335 No No 86
et al. [32]
Xu et al. [85] SSA-PNN Long rh, rc, rt, rh/rc, rc/rt, 75 No No 93.3
Wet
Zhang [91] PSO-BP Long rh/rc, rc/rt, Wet 90 No Yes 95.98
Jin et al. [31] SVM Short N, E, V, Nr, Er, Vr 107 No Yes 86
Xue et al. Copula-MC, DA, DT, Naive bayes, SVM, Long rh, rc, rt, Wet 243 No Yes 88.9
[87] KNN, Ensemble
Cao et al. [10] FDNet Short microseismic time, energy, 13058 No No 76.68
source coordinates
Wang et al. Cloud Model Long rh, rc, rt, rh/rc, rc/ 271 No Yes 93.33
[77] rt,Wet
Guo et al. BP-SVM Long rh, rc, rt, rh/rc, rc/ 420 No Yes 97.5
[27] rt,Wet
Sun et al. [74] FA-RF Long H, rh, rc, rt, Wet 279 No Yes 91
Yin et al. [89] BO-CNN Short E, M0, V, rA, Dr 400 No No 91.67
Guo et al. MARS, DF, t-SNE Long rh, rc, rt, rh/rc, rc/ 344 Yes Yes 90.8
[26] rt,Wet
Shukla et al. XGBoost, DT, SVM Long rh, rc, rt, Wet 134 No No 100
[71]
Liu et al. [49] GA-ANN Short N, E, V 74 No Yes 83.9
Liang et al. Ensemble Short N, E, V, Nr, Er, Vr, D 91 No Yes 86.67
[45]
Yin et al. [90] Ensemble Long rh, rc, rt, rh/rc,rc/ 246 No No 91.80
rt,Wet, (rc - rt)/
(rc ? rt)
Ke et al. [34] PSO-Naive bayes Long rh, rc, rt, Wet 134 No Yes 91.10
Xie et al. [83] GA-XGBoost Long rh, rc, rt, rh/rc, rc/ 275 No Yes 90
rt,Wet
Liang et al. RF, AdaBoost, XGBoost, LGBM, GBM Short N, E, V, Nr, Er, Vr 91 No Yes 80
[44]
Xue et al. PSO-ELM Long rh, rc, rt, rh/rc, rc/ 344 No Yes 88.89
[86] rt,Wet
Li et al. [43] BP-ANN Short r1/rc, ES, GSSC, GSSEM, 254 No No 71
PPV, RD
Liu et al. [48] PSO, BP, SVM, PNN Long rh, rh/rc, Wet 191 No Yes 82.61
Wu et al. [82] PSO-LSSVM Long rh, rc, rt, rh/rc, rc/ 259 No No 88.89
rt,Wet
Pu et al. [63] SVM, GP Long H, rh, rc, rt, rh/rc,rc/ 100 No Yes 52.5
rt,Wet, (rc - rt)/
(rc ? rt)
Shirani al. GA-ENN, GEP, CART Long rh, rc, rt, Wet 134 No No 85.19
[70]
Pu et al. [62] SVM Long rh, rh/rc, rc/rt,Wet 108 No Yes 95
Lin et al. [46] Cloud Model Long rh, rc, rt, rh/rc, rc/ 246 No Yes 71.05
rt,Wet
Li et al. [39] Bayesian Networks Long H, rh, rc, rt, Wet 135 Yes Yes 93.3

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Table 1 (continued)
Authors Method Type Parameters Data Interpretability CV Accuracy
(%)

Li et al. [40] GA-ELM Long rh, rc, rt, Wet 30 No No 100

Zhou et al. LDA, QDA, PLSDA, KNN, ANN, DT, Long H, rh, rc, rt, rh/rc,rc/ 246 No Yes 71.18
[97] SVM, RF, GBM, Naive Bayes rt,Wet, (rc - rt)/
(rc ? rt)
Zhou et al. SGB Short r1/rc, ES, GSSC, GS, 254 No Yes 61.22
[102] PPV
Zhou et al. Cloud Model Long rh, rc, rt, rh/rc, rc/ 209 No No 76.2
[103] rt,Wet
Adoko et al. FIS, ANFIS Long rh, rc, rt, rh/rc, rc/ 174 No No 75
[1] rt,Wet
Dong et al. RF Long rh, rc, rt,Wet 46 No No 100
[16]
Liu et al. [50] Cloud Model Long rh, rc, rt, rh/rc, rc/ 164 No No 100
rt,Wet
Zhou et al. GA-SVM, PSO-SVM Long H, rh, rc, rt, rh/rc, rc/ 132 No Yes 85.71
[99] rt,Wet
Note: rh is the maximum tangential stress (MPa), rc is the uniaxial compressive strength (MPa), rt is the uniaxial tensile strength (MPa), rh/rc
is referred to as the stress concentration factor, (rc - rt)/(rc ? rt) is the rock brittleness index, Wet is the elastic energy index, rc/rt is another
rock brittleness index, r1 is the maximum principal stress (MPa), N denotes the cumulative event number (unit), E represents the cumulative
released energy (J), V is the apparent volume (m3), Nr is the event rate (unit/day), Er is the energy rate (J/day), Vr is the apparent volume rate
(m3/day), D is the incubation time (day), H represents the buried depth reflecting the levels of in-situ stresses (m), M0 is the seismic moment
(N m), rA is the apparent stress (Pa), Dr is the stress drop (Pa), r1/rc represents the stress condition factor, ES is the excavation span (m), GSSC
denotes the ground support system capacity, GS represents the influence of geological structure, SEM represents the seismic event magnitude,
RD is the rock density (kg/m3), PPV is the peak particle velocity (m/s), BO denotes Bayesian optimization, FNN denotes feedforward neural
network, GEP denotes gene expression programming, SSA denotes sparrow search algorithm, PNN denotes probabilistic neural network, PSO
denotes particle swarm optimization, BP denotes back propagation algorithm, Copula-MC denotes copula Monte Carlo method, DA denotes
discriminant analysis, DT denotes decision tree, KNN denotes K-nearest neighbor algorithm, FDNet denotes frequency domain network, FA
denotes firefly algorithm, CNN denotes convolutional neural network, MARS denotes multivariate adaptive regression splines, DF denotes deep
forest algorithm, t-SNE denotes t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding, GA denotes genetic algorithm, ANN denotes artificial neural
network, AdaBoost denotes adaptive boosting algorithm, GBM denotes gradient boosting machine, ELM denotes extreme learning machine,
LSSVM denotes least squares support vector machine, GP denotes gaussian process algorithm, ENN denotes emotional neural network, CART
denotes classification and regression tree, LDA denotes linear discriminant analysis, QDA denotes quadratic discriminant analysis, PLSDA
denotes partial least-squares discriminant analysis, SGB denotes stochastic gradient boosting algorithm, FIS denotes fuzzy inference system, and
ANFIS denotes adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems

8   91=b process are changed flexibly to avoid the Jaya algorithm

< Cð1 þ bÞ sin pb =
h i
2 falling into stagnation.
ru ¼ ; rv ¼ 1 ð4Þ
:C 1þb b2ðb1Þ=2 ;
2
2.2 Machine learning algorithms
In view of the advantages of Lévy Flight, this paper uses
the stochastic search mode of Lévy Flight combined with Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LGBM) is a gradient
Jaya (namely, LFJaya) to find the global optimal solution, boosting framework based on tree learning algorithms. It
which is a combination of frequent small steps and occa- was introduced by the Microsoft team of Ke et al. [35] in
sional large steps. Thus, the following update formula is 2017, with ‘‘Light’’ as the prefix due to its high speed.
obtained [29]: Compared with other existing gradient boosting tree algo-
   rithms, LGBM has the characteristics of fast training speed,
0
Xi;j;t ¼ Xi;j;t þ jLevy1 j Xi;best;t  Xi;j;t 
    high efficiency, less memory usage, high prediction accu-
 jLevy2 j Xi;worst;t  Xi;j;t  ð5Þ
racy, and GPU learning support. In order to achieve its
Among them, Le´vy1 and Le´vy2 are random numbers distributed processing and high efficiency, LGBM uses two
obeying the Lévy distribution. Due to the mechanism of new technologies in the design: gradient-based one-side
Lévy Flight, the positions of individuals in the search sampling (OSS) and exclusive feature bundling (EFB) [14].
In addition, one feature that distinguishes the LGBM
algorithm from other boosting algorithms is that LGBM

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splits the tree by leaves in a best-fit manner, while other
boosting algorithms split the tree by depth or horizontally.
Therefore, when growing on the same leaf in LGBM, it is
possible to reduce more losses than the horizontal seg-
mentation method, and the result has a higher accuracy
[14]. It is worth noting that for smaller data, leaf growth
may lead to increased model complexity and overfitting.
To address this issue, this study employs the LFJaya
algorithm to optimize LGBM parameters and control
model complexity.
Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) is a widely used
ensemble method based on gradient boosting trees, which
was developed by Chen et al. [13] in 2016. This algorithm
has shown excellent efficiency in industrial and learning
competitions, providing fast and reliable models for vari-
ous engineering simulation problems [101]. XGBoost’s
high efficiency comes from its ability to use parallel
computing and process sparse data efficiently. The idea
behind XGBoost is to construct a set of weak evaluators on
the target data and then summarize the prediction results of
the weak evaluators, which leads to better performance
than a single tree model. As with many algorithms, the core
of XGBoost is finding the optimal solution to the objective
function. The objective function consists of two parts: the
model deviation term (the difference between the predicted
value and the actual value) and the regularization term
(which controls the complexity of the model). The pre-
diction accuracy of the model depends on the deviation
term and the regularization term. XGBoost effectively
prevents overfitting by using regularization terms to opti-
mize the objective function [13].
Fig. 2 3D Lévy flights in 1000 steps
Random Forest (RF) is a popular ensemble learning
algorithm based on decision trees, proposed by Breiman in
2001 [8]. Although the decision tree has the advantages of
being simple, intuitive, and having strong interpretability,
it is easy to overfit. Thus, the random forest algorithm is
proposed in order to solve this problem. It takes decision
trees as the basic unit, and constructs random forest by
integrating a large number of decision trees. The random
forest uses the idea of bagging to construct multiple trees to
complete the learning task together, solving the problem
that the decision tree is easy to overfit, improving the tol-
erance of the algorithm to noise, and having better gener-
alization performance. In solving the classification
problem, the random forest uses the voting method to
select the majority as the final result, according to the
decision result of each tree. For the regression problem, the
random forest calculates the average value of the predicted
value of each tree as a result. In addition, compared with
the traditional tree algorithms, RF can be well compatible
with small-capacity data and high-dimensional data,
avoiding overfitting and showing high performance [11].
Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a powerful method
proposed by Vapnik and his team based on the study of
statistical learning theory [76]. SVM is robust to uncertain
data and can efficiently identify the nonlinear relationships
between input and output data. For the linear inseparable
problem, the main idea of SVM is to transform the linear
inseparable data samples of the original low-dimensional
input space into high-dimensional feature space by a non-
linear mapping method (kernel function) [54]. It becomes
linearly separable data so that SVM can perform linear
analysis on the nonlinear features of high-dimensional
feature space samples to construct an optimal decision
boundary (i.e., hyperplane) for classification tasks. The
definition of the optimal hyperplane is that there is a
classification surface that maximizes the distance from the
edge points of the two-point sets to this plane.
Logistic Regression (LR) is a generalized linear
regression analysis model. Its calculation method is similar
to the regression process, but it is mainly used to solve the
binary classification problem (it can also solve the multi-
classification problem) [37]. It is assumed that the training
data D0 is composed of the training examples d = (Xd, td),
where Xd = (xd1, xd2, …, xdm) is an m-dim numerical vector
containing m values of input attributes, and td 2 f0; 1g is a
real class label. LR maps xdi to the corresponding td, to
correctly classify the examples, and its output represents
the probability that the sample belongs to a certain cate-
gory. The model output is obtained by calculating the
weighted sum of the parameters learned during the training
process and then applying an activation function, which is
interpreted as a probability with a class label of 1. The
traditional LR activation function is a sigmoid function.
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2.3 Ensemble learning
Due to the multifactorial complexity of rockburst, it is
difficult to expect that only a stable model can predict the
rockburst risk well. Ensemble learning (EML) has attracted
more and more attention in machine learning and statistics
because of its effectiveness in numerous problem-domain
applications [60]. EML is not a single machine learning
algorithm but a combination of multiple learning algo-
rithms. It fuses multiple classifiers into a multi-classifica-
tion system through a specific integration strategy to obtain
a cumulative decision result with better performance [66].
The combination rule of an ensemble model is an
important factor in improving its classification perfor-
mance [81]. In this study, the stacking strategy was used to
develop the corresponding ensemble learning model, which
can combine the members of the ensemble through a single
classifier to make the fusion of the model more scientific.
The basic idea is to use the prediction results of the base
learners of the previous layers as a new model feature
matrix to train the learner of the final layer and finally to
use its output as the final prediction result of this strategy
combination framework.
The training process of EML is relatively complex
compared to the training process of a single algorithm.
First, N base classifiers (tier-1) are constructed and the
training data is divided into B subsets. Then each base
classifier (tier-1) is trained on different B-1 subsets for B
times, and the B-th subset is retained each time to evaluate
the classifiers. At the same time, the output results of these
base classifiers are spliced as the training data of the tier-2
model [60]. The EML model proposed in this study con-
sists of two layers, and its structure and training process are
shown in Fig. 3. The base learners of tier-1 select several
models that are widely used and have strong extraction
capabilities of nonlinear relationships, including LGBM,
XGBoost, RF, and SVM. And new data generated by the
four classifiers are then combined (as shown in Fig. 3) and
used for the training of the tier-2 LR model, which finally
obtains the prediction results of EML.
3 Data analysis
In general, the precursor information of microseismic
cracking is often available before the occurrence of sub-
surface dynamic hazards. The continuous monitoring and
analysis of microseismic waves released from rock rupture
by microseismic (MS) monitoring is used to record some
precursor characteristics of rockburst and obtain high-
quality rockburst data, which is crucial for safety studies of
rockburst [19]. Based on the study by Feng et al. [19] of
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deep-buried tunnel in the Jinping II Hydropower Station
project on the Yalong River in Sichuan Province, China,
and 91 sets of rockburst case data were collected in this
study. The dataset was derived from the microseismic
monitoring system, which provides many relevant model
parameters that can be used to quantify MS events [19].
The average tunnel length of the diversion tunnels under
the Jinping II Hydropower Station is about 16.67 km, and
the tunnel system consists of seven parallel tunnels (four
diversion tunnels and two auxiliary tunnels), which is
currently the largest diversion tunnel project in the world.
The maximum burial depth of the overlying rock of the
diversion tunnel group is about 2525 m, and the average
burial depth is about 1.5–2 km, among which the tunnel
sections with overburden depth greater than 1.7 km
account for more than 75%, indicating the characteristics
of large burial depth, large hole diameter, and long hole
line. The lithology of the strata along its diversion tunnels
is mainly marble, tuff, and sandstone, and most of the
tunnel rocks are composed of marble, which is character-
ized by brittleness and high strength (saturated uniaxial
compressive strength of 30–120 MPa, Young’s modulus of
about 25–40 GPa, tensile strength of 3–6 MPa)
[22, 44, 52]. Consequently, the deep engineering in such
geological conditions has a high risk of rockburst, which
often occurs at different intensities during the construction
of Jinping tunnels (refer to Fig. 4 for the deep-buried
tunnels and related geology of the Jinping II Hydropower
Station).
Since MS events are closely linked to rock rupture
damage, the selected variables should reflect microfracture
activity during rockburst evolution. Therefore, seven MS
parameters related to rock rupture intensity, time, and
cumulative deformation were selected, which are as fol-
lows: cumulative event number N (unit) to evaluate the
dynamic trend of rupture; cumulative release energy E (J)
to reflect the overall rupture intensity of the regional rock
mass; cumulative apparent volume V (m3) to indicate the
degree of damage to the rock mass; event rate Nr (unit/day)
to indicate the frequency of microseismic events; energy
rate Er (J/day) to reflect the magnitude of the rate of energy
release; apparent volume rate Vr (m3/day) to reflect the
time evolution pattern of rock deformation; rockburst
incubation time D (day) to reflect the latent period of
rockburst occurrence. The calculation formulas for seismic
energy and apparent volume are as follows: Eqs. (6) and
(7) [25, 44, 47]. In these formulas, q represents the density
of the material, c0 represents the velocity of the wave,
v2(f0) is the velocity power spectrum, f0 represents the
frequency, l represents the shear modulus, and P repre-
sents the seismic potency.
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Fig. 3 The learning process of ensemble model
Z1
E ¼ 8pqc0 v2 ðf0 Þdf ð6Þ
0
2
VA ¼ lP =E ð7Þ
These parameters provide information on microseismic
activity and reflect the process of rockburst formation in
the monitored area. Table 2 presents a statistical summary
of the seven input parameters used in this study. To
facilitate calculation and compression of variable scales,
the values of cumulative release energy, cumulative
apparent volume, energy rate, and apparent volume rate are
expressed in logarithmic form [44]. The output variable is
rockburst intensity level, which is classified into four cat-
egories based on radiation energy and damage, following
the work of Feng et al. [19]: none, low, moderate, and high.
In this paper, the target variable was encoded as follows: 0
(NB), 1 (LB), 2 (MB), and 3 (HB) correspond to none, low,
moderate, and high rockburst, respectively. Further infor-
mation on microseismic monitoring can be found in Feng
et al. [20].
To address the issue of commonly used data visualiza-
tions failing to effectively represent redundant data infor-
mation, this study adopted the raincloud plot visualization
method proposed by Allen et al. [4]. Figure 5 presents the
raincloud plot, which integrates multiple visualization
techniques to provide a clear overview of the statistical
information on the overall distribution and central trends of
the seven MS parameters selected for this study across the
four rockburst intensity levels. Moreover, this plot also
reveals a few outliers for each parameter, which reflects the
complexity of the rockburst formation mechanism. As
shown in Fig. 5, each input indicator has a unique distri-
bution, and some parameter ranges overlap. The trend
analysis in the figure indicates that most MS parameters
(excluding D) have a positive correlation with the target
values, with these parameters showing an increase in val-
ues with increasing rockburst intensity.
A correlation analysis of variables can be conducted to
determine the relationships between different parameters,
which can lead to a better understanding of the corre-
sponding data and phenomena. In the correlation graph
presented in Fig. 6, it can be observed that most parameters
exhibit a positive correlation, except for the negative cor-
relation coefficients between parameters Nr and D, as well
as Vr and D. Moreover, it can be seen that, except for
parameter D, all other parameters have a correlation
coefficient greater than 0.5 with the rockburst potential. It
is noteworthy that the correlation coefficients between E
and Er (0.97) as well as V and Vr (0.89) are very high.
Usually, these parameters are considered for deletion;
however, the time effect of the MS parameters has a sig-
nificant contribution to the development of short-term
rockbursts [31] and is therefore included in the analysis.
Furthermore, in the study conducted by Liang et al. [45],
including all parameters related to the time effect resulted
in the best prediction performance, indicating that the time
effect is a key factor influencing rockburst prediction. In
summary, to fully utilize the contribution of these param-
eters and to better predict the rockburst potential, all seven
parameters listed in Table 2 are considered in this study.
When the data distribution of the training and testing
sets are similar, the evaluation results of a model can more
accurately reflect its performance in application. Figure 7
displays the parameters distribution of the training and
testing data used in this study. As shown in the figure, the
distribution of the different parameters in the training and
testing data is largely consistent, ensuring the reliability of
the model testing.
4 Evaluation indicators
Performance evaluation is an essential step in the model
development process, and the appropriate selection of
evaluation metrics can help to identify the model’s
strengths and weaknesses and provide guidance for further
improvements. In this study, five metrics, including two
global metrics (accuracy and kappa value) and three intra-
class metrics (precision, recall, and F1-score), were used
for the performance evaluation of rockburst prediction
models [95, 96].
Accuracy measures the proportion of correct predic-
tions, kappa measures the agreement between actual and
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Fig. 4 Location and related geology of Jinping II Hydropower Station

Table 2 Statistical information of MS parameters

Indicator Statistical descriptions Number Level
Standard deviation Mean Min Max

N (unit) 13.1337 12.3407 1 70 34 NB

E (J) 1.4501 4.3639 0.780 7.094
V (m3) 0.6595 4.1329 2.511 5.168 21 LB
Nr (unit/day) 1.6892 1.6625 0.111 12.250
Er (J/day) 1.3389 3.5392 0.178 5.890 25 MB
Vr (m3/day) 0.5886 3.3188 1.666 4.393
D (day) 4.4224 7.7692 1 23 11 HB

predicted values beyond chance, and it is a robust index.
According to the literature [38], kappa values range from -
1 (complete disagreement) to 1 (complete agreement), and
in general, its value is below 0.4 for poor performance,
while 0.4 and above indicates a good result, and kappa
value above 0.8 indicates almost perfect agreement. Pre-
cision measures the proportion of true positives among all
predicted positives, while recall measures the proportion of
true positives among all actual positives. F1-score is the
harmonic mean of precision and recall. Together, these
metrics provide a comprehensive understanding of model’s
performance. Finally, the computation of these metrics is
shown in Fig. 8, where Po is the observed proportion of
agreement, and Pe is the proportion of agreement expected
by chance.

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Fig. 5 Raincloud plot visualization of MS parameters across rockburst intensity
5 Ensemble model construction base
on LFJaya
Generally, the performance of individual model used in
rockburst prediction can be limited. Thus, an ensemble
framework base on multiple classifiers (i.e., LGBM,
XGBoost, RF, SVM, and LR) in this paper was employed
to evaluate rockburst potential. The development process
of this framework was illustrated in Fig. 9 and consists of
the following main steps:
(a) Firstly, 91 sets of microseismic information-based
rockburst case data were collected from the Jinping
II Hydropower Station project, and randomly divided
into training and testing sets with a ratio of 70% and
30%, respectively, according to the literature
[45, 107].
(b) The internal parameters of the classifiers have a great
influence on their performance. After parametric
experiments and literature analysis for this study, the
important parameters of each classifier were selected
and then combined with LFJaya and cross-validation
(CV) method for classifier optimization. It is worth
noting that the MS input data were normalized before
the model training to improve the modeling effi-
ciency and eliminate the interference of data dimen-
sion and range.
(c) Classifiers such as LGBM were used as base
learners, and then multiple base learners were
combined to construct a first-layer ensemble frame-
work with the original rockburst data as the input.
Then a final hybrid ensemble model (LFJaya-EML)
was composed by using the first-layer framework
results as the input of the second-layer learners.
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Fig. 6 Correlation analysis of model parameters
These base learners were used to generate new data
features for model retraining, and the final ensemble
results were obtained.
(d) Multiple performance comparisons were performed,
and the contribution of input parameters and inter-
action effects were analyzed based on the EML
learning results.
Fig. 7 Comparison of training and testing data distribution
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6 Results and discussion
An ensemble framework is a strategic combination of
multiple different models, each of which provides specific
functionality, resulting in better predictive performance for
a given target. In this paper, five data mining models (i.e.,
LGBM, XGBoost, RF, SVM, and LR) were used as the
base learners for the EML model. The LFJaya method was
employed to optimize and adjust the model parameters.
The selection of these base learners provides the EML
model with diversity in rockburst prediction: LGBM has
fast training speed and higher efficiency to learn and infer
nonlinear relationships between rockburst parameters;
XGBoost can adapt to less rockburst training data and is
relatively insensitive to irrelevant parameters; RF performs
well on handling high-dimensional data; SVM has strong
overfitting processing ability; and LR provides well-cali-
brated prediction probabilities while being fast to compute.
They have effectively solved related problems in many
fields and enhanced the generalization and reliability of the
EML while achieving a highly diverse ensemble system.
Since the number of rockburst cases is relatively small in
this study, which may affect the predictive performance of
each learner, it is meaningful to analyze the performance
differences between the ensemble framework and base
learners.
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Fig. 8 Calculation of evaluation metrics
6.1 Hyperparameters tuning
To achieve the best classification of rockburst potential, an
ensemble model based on multiple machine learning
algorithms was constructed. The selected base learners
were optimized and adjusted using the LFJaya method,
with the cross-entropy loss function used as the fitness
evaluation.
To effectively build and evaluate the EML model, the
rockburst database was randomly divided in a ratio of 7:3
for training and testing. Four base learners were proposed
based on LFJaya, and the same sets were used for these
models. It is worth noting that excessively large population
sizes would increase computation time. After repeated
attempts, it was found that the four base learners were
insensitive to population values. Therefore, a population
size of 50 and 200 iterations was chosen, which provided
sufficient computational efficiency and search space cov-
erage for completing the optimal parameter search for each
base learner. In addition, based on the experience of tuning
parameters for each model and several experiments, the
corresponding parameters in Table 3 were selected in this
study as the main model parameters for optimization. The
settings of the parameter ranges and the results of optimal
hyperparameter combinations during optimization are
summarized in Table 3, and their performance will be
evaluated in the next section.
To effectively evaluate the performance of the four
LFJaya models, iteration curves for these models were
plotted based on the values of the fitness function during
optimization, as shown in Fig. 10. The optimization
process for each model resulted in a decreasing trend of the
loss value over iterations, with the lowest loss value
obtained at the end of optimization. While the iteration
curves differed for each base learner, they all showed a
similar trend. Notably, the LFJaya-XGBoost model had a
significantly smaller convergent validity compared to the
other LFJaya models, indicating a less desirable internal
parameter search. The LFJaya-RF model had the lowest
final loss value among the four hybrid models, with the loss
mean value of the cross-validation process reduced from
about 0.90 to about 0.70. The overall loss mean value
reduced significantly within about 10 iterations, demon-
strating the efficient convergence performance of the
LFJaya algorithm. The overall mean loss of the model
leveled off to the optimal state around 160 iterations.
In addition, to ensure a fair evaluation of the search
process, this study adopted a K-fold cross-validation (CV)
method to test the performance of each base classifier.
Specifically, the rockburst training set was divided into k
subsets, with k-1 subsets used for training and the
remaining subset used for evaluation. This process was
repeated k times, with each subset used exactly once for
evaluation. In this study, a fivefold CV was used due to
computational constraints. Figure 11 presents the hyper-
parameter tuning changes of the four LFJaya models dur-
ing the CV optimization search, including the different
parameter combinations and their corresponding mean
losses.
6.2 Performance comparison
To compare the performance of different models, this study
employed five performance evaluation metrics and con-
ducted a nonparametric statistical test to rank the models
based on each metric. The results, presented in Table 4,
indicate that only LFJaya-LGBM and LFJaya-RF have
accuracy values above 0.8, with most of the hybrid models
based on LFJaya showing better test performance. Among
the LFJaya-based hybrid tree models, LFJaya-RF demon-
strated the best prediction performance, as evidenced by its
superior performance on all evaluation metrics compared
to other methods, including single models not optimized by
the LFJaya algorithm. In contrast, XGBoost performed
poorly on rockburst prediction, significantly underper-
forming the other two tree models. For more details on the
performance results, please refer to Table 4.
Given the large number of models and metrics in
Table 4, this study utilized a statistical analysis of perfor-
mance to comprehensively evaluate the models. Specifi-
cally, this study employed the suggestion of Demšar [15]
and performed a nonparametric Friedman test, followed by
the corresponding Nemenyi test [97]. The Friedman test,
which is a nonparametric equivalent of the repeated
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Fig. 9 Flowchart of the ensemble learning framework for rockburst potential prediction

Table 3 Parameter ranges and optimal values for LFJaya models in top-ranked rank. The Friedman statistic was used to mea-
rockburst prediction sure the degree of difference in performance between the
Algorithm Optimized value Parameters Xmin Xmax models. The Friedman statistic was calculated using the
following formula:
LGBM 26 num_boost_round 2 500 " #
12NT X k
kðk þ 1Þ2
0.2408 learning_rate 0.001 0.99 2
xf ¼ 2
R  ð8Þ
XGBoost 12 num_boost_round 2 500 kðk þ 1Þ j¼1 j 4
0.5342 learning_rate 0.001 0.99
RF 15 n_estimators 2 500
where k denotes the number of classifiers, NT represents the
amount of data, and Rj denotes the ranking of classifiers on
5 max_depth 1 15
all data.
SVM 3 C 0.1 100
The Nemenyi test calculates the critical difference (CD)
0.9793 gamma 0.01 50
between the rankings of two rockburst classifiers, which
represents the minimum significant difference between the
measure analysis of variance, was used to rank each model two classifiers. In other words, the two classifiers must
separately based on their performance in rockburst pre- have a critical difference in order to be considered to have
diction. The model with the better performance was given a

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Fig. 10 The loss optimization curves of LFJaya models

a statistically significant difference. The critical difference The comprehensive evaluation results of the models
(CD) is calculated using the following formula [97]: mentioned above are presented in Fig. 12. It can be
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi observed that LFJaya-XGBoost demonstrated inferior
kðk þ 1Þ performance compared to LGBM. In addition, the majority
CD ¼ qa  ð9Þ
6NT of hybrid models based on LFJaya showed satisfactory
prediction performance. Among all compared models,
where qa is the critical value in the Nemenyi test and
LFJaya-RF had the best overall performance in predicting
depends on the number of rockburst classifiers as well as
rockburst. This finding is consistent with the conclusions
the significance level a.
drawn in Fig. 10, which demonstrate that LFJaya-RF

Fig. 11 Optimization tunings for parameters of LFJaya models: a LFJaya-LGBM; b LFJaya-XGBoost; c LFJaya-RF; d LFJaya-SVM

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Table 4 Comparison of base learners performance before and after identify model bias and variance and reveal model weak-
LFJaya optimization nesses, facilitating further improvements. Based on the
Models Evaluation Indicators results shown in Fig. 14, the main diagonal of the confu-
sion matrix represents the number of correctly classified
Accuracy Kappa Precision Recall F1-
score rockburst potentials, while the off-diagonal entries indicate
the number of incorrectly classified ones. Misclassifying
LFJaya-LGBM 0.8214 0.7477 0.7806 0.7917 0.7840 none rockburst (NB) cases can lead to unnecessary alarm
LFJaya- 0.7143 0.6021 0.7743 0.6917 0.7121 and increase the cost of risk prevention measures. There-
XGBoost
fore, accurate prediction of the NB class is particularly
LFJaya-RF 0.8571 0.7993 0.8812 0.8417 0.8395
important. As shown in Fig. 14, the EML model achieved
LFJaya-SVM 0.7500 0.6519 0.8021 0.7417 0.7478 high accuracy for the discrimination of the NB class, with a
LR 0.6071 0.438 0.6979 0.5667 0.5806 value of 100%, and also exhibited the highest number of
LGBM 0.7857 0.6973 0.7389 0.7417 0.7386 correct predictions for the MB class. Moreover, EML had
XGBoost 0.6786 0.5579 0.6944 0.6667 0.6639 the largest total number of correctly classified cases across
RF 0.6786 0.5640 0.7976 0.6917 0.7000 all classes (in Fig. 14, NB corresponds to the none rock-
SVM 0.6786 0.5602 0.7739 0.6917 0.6959 burst, LB corresponds to the low rockburst, MB corre-
sponds to the moderate rockburst, and HB corresponds to
the high rockburst).
exhibited the best performance across all metrics. In In practical applications, moderate and high rockburst
summary, the results indicate that the hybrid models based can lead to more serious consequences in engineering and
on LFJaya are effective in improving the rockburst pre- should receive greater attention. Meanwhile, to better
diction performance of the models. evaluate the discrimination performance of the models
After tuning the parameters of multiple classifiers, their regarding the presence or absence of rockburst, their
predictive results were compared and the corresponding classification performances were analyzed in different
optimal parameter combinations were recorded. The scenarios, as presented in Fig. 15.
detailed results can be found in Table 3. Once the training In Fig. 15a, the target was divided into two states: with
of the EML model was completed, its predictive perfor- and without rockburst. Misjudging the none rockburst (NB)
mance was tested, validated, and compared with that of the cases can result in unnecessary losses. EML and LR
base classifiers. The detailed indicator results are presented achieved 100% prediction accuracy for NB cases. In terms
in Table 5. As shown in Table 5, the EML classifier of predicting the occurrence of rockburst, EML exhibited
combines some of the advantages of the base classifiers and the highest accuracy of approximately 0.8333. In Fig. 15b,
achieves the best predictive performance for rockburst the NB and LB classes were combined into a low-hazard
potential, with a precision value of 0.9023 and an accuracy rockburst class, while the MB and HB classes were com-
value of 0.8929, which is close to 0.9. It can be observed bined into a high-hazard rockburst class. For low-hazard
that the accuracy of EML is 4% higher than that of LFJaya- rockburst, EML and LFJaya-RF showed the best accuracy
RF. These results suggest that the EML model outperforms (0.9333). For high-hazard rockburst, EML achieved the
the individual base classifiers that make up the EML in highest accuracy of about 0.8462, while the accuracy of
predicting rockburst potential. other models was lower than 0.8. Overall, based on the
Similarly, based on the statistical analysis described results in Fig. 15, EML was found to be the best choice for
above, a comprehensive evaluation was conducted to rockburst prediction in this study.
compare the predictive performance of the EML model and To gain a more intuitive understanding of the rockburst
the base classifiers. The evaluation results are presented in classifiers, it is essential to use the graph visualization
Fig. 13, which shows that some classifiers, such as LR and about discrimination. The model decision chart can effec-
LFJaya-XGBoost, do not perform well on the same dataset, tively present the working situation of the classifiers, val-
while the EML model, which combines multiple base idate model performance, and deepen knowledge of
learners, outperforms them. The EML model is ranked underlying processes. Figure 16 analyzes the decision
significantly higher than its base learners, with LFJaya-RF boundary of the EML and other base classifiers.
following closely behind. The results demonstrate the In Fig. 16, it can be seen that different rockburst types
superior predictive performance of the EML in this study, were represented in different colors, and the decision
further confirming its ensemble effect. boundaries became more precise as the model was inte-
Confusion matrix [72] is a table used to evaluate the grated. Moreover, the red circles encircle parts that repre-
performance of classification models, which can help sent rockburst classification errors. Elements immediately
adjacent to the boundary are relatively difficult to classify,

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Fig. 12 Comprehensive comparison of base classifiers performance before and after optimization

Table 5 Performance comparison of EML and base learners classes. Overall, the results in Fig. 16 demonstrate that
EML combines the advantages of base learners and pro-
Models Evaluation Indicators
vides more accurate decisions.
Accuracy Kappa Precision Recall F1- During model prediction, overfitting often occurs, which
score
indicates poor generalization performance of the model.
LFJaya-LGBM 0.8214 0.7477 0.7806 0.7917 0.784 Overfitting is a situation where a model is overly complex
LFJaya- 0.7143 0.6021 0.7743 0.6917 0.7121 and learns noise in the data, resulting in poor performance
XGBoost on new data. Therefore, it is essential to avoid overfitting.
LFJaya-RF 0.8571 0.7993 0.8812 0.8417 0.8395 In this paper, the relationship between the prediction
LFJaya-SVM 0.75 0.6519 0.8021 0.7417 0.7478 accuracy on the training and testing sets of the 10 classi-
LR 0.6071 0.438 0.6979 0.5667 0.5806 fiers is analyzed using an overfitting plot shown in Fig. 17.
EML 0.8929 0.8453 0.9023 0.8417 0.8631 The larger the deviation of the model from the 1:1 line, the
more severe the overfitting. Ideally, a point should fall on
the line, indicating that the model has good generalization
performance. From Fig. 17, it can be seen that XGBoost
while those further away have a higher degree of certainty
and RF models have the most severe overfitting among all
regarding rockburst class attribution. EML shows fewer
models, but their overfitting is significantly reduced by
decision errors in the none rockburst (NB) class and has the
using the LFJaya optimization technique. The overfitting
highest accuracy among the six models. The decision
plot analysis shows that EML can effectively reduce
regions of LFJaya-SVM and LR are distinctly jagged
overfitting in rockburst prediction and improve the overall
compared to EML. However, the results in Fig. 16 also
generalization performance of the model compared to other
suggest that low rockburst and high rockburst classes are
classifiers.
relatively more difficult to discriminate, which may be due
to the relatively small number of cases for these two

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Fig. 13 Comprehensive comparison of performance for EML and base classifiers

Fig. 14 The confusion matrix of EML and base learners

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Fig. 15 Discrimination comparison of models for different rockburst states: a with and without rockburst; b Low-hazard and high-hazard
rockburst
6.3 Rockburst potential interpretation based
on ensemble model
The development of an accurate rockburst potential pre-
diction model is essential for better understanding the
relationship between rockburst potential and risk factors.
However, it is also important to have an understanding of
how the model works and to explore the contribution of
parameter features to the model output.
Ensemble model with high complexity and good accu-
racy generally lack interpretability. In this section, how
SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) value and Local
Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME) can be
used to interpret the rockburst prediction results of EML
model and quantify the impact of associated risk factors
were discussed. Shapley value is a concept from Cooper-
ative Game Theory that was first proposed in 1953 [69].
SHAP is an additive explanation method based on Shapley
value [23]. The prediction value of the model is understood
as the sum of the attribution values of each input feature.
The most important characteristic of SHAP is that it can
effectively reflect the influence of the features in each
sample (i.e., the extent to which the features contribute to
the predictive ability of the model) and show the positivity
or negativity of that influence. In addition, the SHAP
method can capture feature interactions directly based on
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Fig. 16 Decision boundaries for EML and base learners
the Shapley interaction index to reveal hidden relationships
between features, which can further enhance the local
interpretation of the model. The calculation of Shapley
values is as follows [100]:
X jSj!ðjN0 j  jSj  1!Þ
Ui ¼ ½fS[i ðxS[i Þ  fS ðxS Þ ð10Þ
SN nðiÞ
jN0 j!
0 made by the model being interpreted and provide insight
where N0 denotes the set of all features in the rockburst
dataset, S denotes the set after index i is removed, the
importance of feature i to the rockburst-model output is
represented by Ui, xs denotes the vector of rockburst fea-
tures in set S, and the feature contributions are calculated
with the corresponding function f.
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LIME is a popular method for local interpretation [59].
It works by perturbing the data of input instances to create
a new dataset, which is then used to train a simple and
interpretable local model (such as a linear model) to fit the
decision boundary of the model being interpreted [59, 104].
This local model can then be used to explain the decision
into the factors that contribute to that decision for a given
rockburst sample. The weight coefficients of the local
model reflect the importance of the rockburst features in
the current decision. The definition of LIME is as follows:
nðxÞ ¼ arg min Qðfx ; g; px Þ þ XðgÞ ð11Þ
g2G
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Fig. 17 Prediction accuracy diagram on training and testing sets
where n is defined as the objective function, the function Q
is used to measure the distance of prediction between the
interpretable model g and the model fx to be interpreted, X
(g) is used to measure the complexity of the agent model,
G denotes the set of agent models, and px denotes the
distance from the sampled instances to the original
instances x.
This paragraph describes the influential factors on
rockburst potential classification by using SHAP values.
Figure 18 shows the SHAP values of each feature point for
rockburst samples, where positive values indicate a pro-
motion of the model prediction and negative values indi-
cate a negative impact on the prediction [94]. The
figure presents a comparison of the influential factors for
different rockburst potential levels separately and in order.
In Fig. 18a, factor E has the largest influence on the pre-
diction of the NB class, where larger values of cumulative
release energy result in a negative impact on the prediction,
indicating a higher potential for rockburst occurrence.
Similarly, in Fig. 18b–d, the factors E and V have the
greatest effects on low, moderate, and high rockbursts. The
large values of cumulative release energy and cumulative
apparent volume promote the prediction of moderate and
high rockbursts, which is consistent with the actual situa-
tion. The overall contribution chart presented in Fig. 18e
displays the contribution values of seven parameters: N, E,
V, Nr, Er, Vr, and D, which are 0.2116, 0.3105, 0.2714,
0.0747, 0.0989, 0.0525, and 0.0264, respectively. The
results indicate that the parameters E, V, and N have the
most significant effects on rockburst potential classifica-
tion. Although time effect parameters like D have rela-
tively lower contribution scores, experiments have
demonstrated that including these parameters in the study
improves the predictive performance. It is worth noting that
time effect parameters like D still have significant contri-
butions to the classification of NB and LB, which high-
lights their importance in rockburst potential evaluation.
Previous studies have shown that factors such as the
number, strength, size, and temporal effects of rock frac-
tures and radiant energy are critical for rockburst risk
prediction [12, 45], which are consistent with the influen-
tial results of the parameters shown in Fig. 18 of this paper.
Figure 19 provides further insights into the hidden
contribution relationship between the most influential fea-
tures through an intuitive three-dimensional interaction
analysis. The analysis presented in Fig. 19a demonstrates a
negative correlation effect between cumulative release
energy and cumulative apparent volume on the prediction
of NB. Specifically, as the cumulative release energy
increases, there is a hindering effect on the prediction of
NB. However, this hindering effect can be weakened if the
cumulative apparent volume is relatively small. Neverthe-
less, overall, the effect is still negative. Figure 19b reveals
that cumulative release energy and apparent volume values
in an intermediate range consistently have a promoting
effect on the prediction of LB. However, as the energy
value increases beyond this range, the prediction of LB is
negatively influenced, since larger values of energy and
apparent volume correspond to higher intensity rockbursts.
The overall trend shown in Fig. 19c is similar to that in
Fig. 19b, but the cumulative release energy and cumulative
apparent volume values that have a promoting effect on the
prediction of MB are higher. In Fig. 19d, the analysis
demonstrates that the interaction between cumulative
release energy and cumulative apparent volume has a
positive effect on the prediction of HB. In summary, the
cumulative release energy and apparent volume values
have the significant effect on rockburst predictions, and the
red part of Fig. 19, which indicates promoting prediction,
shifts from the lower left to the upper right (in the x–y
plane) as the intensity of rockbursts increases.
In the above content, an overall analysis based on SHAP
was conducted to study the key input variables that affect
rockburst potential. In order to enhance the understanding
of the behavior of the EML model and the rockburst
classification results, LIME was used for a more detailed
case study of these four types of rockbursts. LIME can
analyze the prediction results of the EML model on specific
instances and reveal how the model makes decisions based
on input. Additionally, it can display the confidence level
of the model prediction results, which can be used to
evaluate the reliability of the model prediction results for
specific instances. Through the use of LIME analysis, the
aim is to better understand the factors that lead to each
specific type of rockburst and to validate the results
obtained through SHAP analysis. The results of the SHAP
and LIME analyses for cases with different rockburst types
123

Fig. 18 Summary of SHAP values for the impact of seven variables on model output: a none rockburst; b low rockburst; c moderate rockburst;
d high rockburst; e total contribution
are presented in Figs. 20, 21, 22, 23. Despite being cal-
culated using different methods, similar results were
obtained from both methods. It’s worth noting that the base
value in the figure represents the target mean value, and
f(x) is the output value of the rockburst type in the case.
The red and blue arrows represent that increase and sup-
press the rockburst predictions, respectively, while the
arrow lengths indicate the degree of influence of the vari-
ables on the prediction [36].
Figure 20 presents a case study of the NB class, with
feature values of 0.111, 1.680, 2.0, 2.936, and 5.16 for Nr,
Vr, N, V, and E, respectively. The SHAP analysis in
Fig. 20a indicates that a larger value of E has a hindering
effect on the prediction of NB, while smaller values of N
and V have a promoting effect. The LIME analysis in
Fig. 20b produces similar results, showing a maximum
rockburst predictive probability of 0.63 for NB, and almost
identical contribution degrees and positive and negative
effects of the corresponding features as obtained from the
SHAP analysis. Figure 21 illustrates a case of the LB class
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with feature values of 3.977, 8.0, 5.204, 4.72, 2.667, and
3.5 for V, N, E, Er, Nr, and Vr, respectively. Compared to
the results in Fig. 20a, the increased values of V and N in
Fig. 21a have a promoting effect on the prediction of LB.
Similarly, Fig. 21b shows that V and N have a promoting
effect, showing a maximum rockburst predictive proba-
bility of 0.48 for LB. It is worth noting that unlike the NB
case in Fig. 20, E in Fig. 21 has a positive effect since LR
represents the state in which rockburst has already occur-
red. Figure 22 presents a case study of the MB class with
feature values of 4.263, 5.865, and 19.0 for V, E, and N,
respectively. As shown in Fig. 22a, high values of V, E,
and N promote the prediction of MB, with V being the
most influential feature, followed by E and N. Figure 22b
shows a maximum rockburst predictive probability of 0.67
for MB, and the ranking of the main contributing features
is consistent with that in Fig. 22a, all having a positive
effect. Figure 23 presents a case study of the HB class,
with feature values of 4.995, 6.419, 49.0, 5.817, 4.393, and
12.25 for V, E, N, Er, Vr, and Nr, respectively. In Fig. 23a,
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Fig. 19 Analysis of the interaction effects between the main variables: a none rockburst; b low rockburst; c moderate rockburst; d high rockburst
it is evident that V, E, and N exhibit large values and
contribute significantly to the prediction of HB. The LIME
analysis presented in Fig. 23b shows the maximum rock-
burst probability of 0.90 for HB, with a significant dis-
criminatory effect. Furthermore, the feature contribution
ranking is consistent between Fig. 23a, b, all presenting a
positive effect. In summary, the SHAP and LIME analysis
results demonstrate the robustness and reliability of the
EML model for the classification of rockburst potential.
The positive and negative effects of different variables on
each rockburst type, as well as the strength of their rela-
tionships, are generally consistent.
6.4 Study significance and limitations
As underground engineering goes deeper, existing rock-
burst prediction methods become inadequate to meet safety
requirements of engineering at great depth [33, 79].
Therefore, improving rockburst prediction accuracy and
reducing the risk and intensity of rockbursts is crucial. This
study proposes an LFJaya-based EML model to predict
rockburst potential based on 91 rockburst samples from the
Jinping II Hydropower Station project. The proposed
method achieves satisfactory rockburst prediction perfor-
mance with a small dataset. Previously, Liang et al. [45]
proposed a weight-based ensemble classifier and achieved
the highest accuracy of 0.8667. In this study, the same 7:3
ratio was used to construct the predictive model, and the
highest accuracy of 0.8929 was achieved by the proposed
EML model, and 100% accuracy was obtained for the none
rockburst class, indicating that the prediction performance
of EML has been significantly improved by integrating
multiple learners. Therefore, EML developed in this study
can provide effective guidance for rockburst risk assess-
ment, and promote rockburst risk prediction in deep
underground engineering. Furthermore, Table 6 presents a
comparison of this EML with previous studies on related
rockburst data for a more intuitive form.
Although the overall prediction performance of the
EML model is satisfactory, there are some limitations. The
confusion matrix shows that the prediction performance of
some rockburst classes is undesirable, which may be due to
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Fig. 20 Probabilistic interpretation and contribution analysis for NB: a SHAP value; b LIME

Fig. 21 Probabilistic interpretation and contribution analysis for LB: a SHAP value; b LIME

the relatively small number of cases for these rockburst
classes. Therefore, in future studies, more attention should
be given to this aspect to improve the performance of the
model. In addition, the rockburst dataset is small in feature
types and has a limited variety of features based solely on
microseismic monitoring. Future studies could expand the
dataset to include other stress or rock indicators. Small
datasets may lead to overfitting of the model and reduce its
generalization. However, ensemble classifiers have better
robustness and data scalability, which is a significant
advantage.

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Fig. 22 Probabilistic interpretation and contribution analysis for MB: a SHAP value; b LIME

Fig. 23 Probabilistic interpretation and contribution analysis for HB: a SHAP value; b LIME

6.5 Case verification
To further demonstrate the effectiveness of the LFJaya-
EML classifier proposed in this study in differentiating
between different rockburst potentials, this section applied
it to newly collected rockburst data that was not included in
the original 91 samples. These new validation data were
obtained from Feng et al. [19, 20], which recorded six
rockburst events in the Jinping II Hydropower Station
project. Table 7 presents the specific MS parameter infor-
mation and rockburst types of these events. A graphical
user interface (GUI) was developed for the corresponding

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Table 6 Corresponding indicator values and levels for rockburst validation cases
Author Model Parameters Accuracy (%)

Liang et al. [44] RF, AdaBoost, XGBoost, LGBM, GBM N, E, V, Nr, Er, Vr 80
Liang et al. [45] Weight-based Ensemble N, E, V, Nr, Er, Vr, D 86.67
Jin et al. [31] SVM N, E, V, Nr, Er, Vr 86
This work LFJaya-EML N, E, V, Nr, Er, Vr, D 89.92

Table 7 Corresponding indicator values and levels for rockburst validation cases
N (unit) E (J) V (m3) NR (unity/day) ER (J/day) VR (m3/day) D (day) Level EML

1 2 1.940 3.250 2.0 1.920 3.250 1 NB NB

2 3 1.250 4.944 3.0 1.250 4.944 1 NB NB
3 42 6.284 5.050 6.0 5.439 4.204 7 HB HB
4 45 4.803 4.838 4.1 3.762 3.796 11 HB HB
5 17 3.172 5.015 1.7 2.172 4.015 10 LB LB
6 18 3.828 4.703 3.0 3.046 3.924 6 MB MB

Fig. 24 The graphical user interface of EML

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EML prediction based on this study, and the results are
displayed in Fig. 24. It can be seen that the EML model
accurately predicted all six rockburst events, further
proving the good generalization of the ensemble model and
its effectiveness and practicality.
7 Conclusions
Rockburst is a hazardous phenomenon in underground rock
engineering, which cannot be entirely controlled or pre-
vented from occurring. However, it can be predicted in
advance to take appropriate measures and minimize the
associated risks and losses. Therefore, this study aimed to
investigate the evolutionary prediction of microseismic
parameters for short-term rockburst using the ensemble
learning model based on 91 rockburst data obtained from
the microseismic monitoring of Jinping Hydropower Sta-
tion. An EML model based on LFJaya was proposed to
evaluate the short-term rockburst potential in this paper.
The main findings of this study are summarized as follows:
(1) This study evaluated five commonly used ML
algorithms for subsurface engineering analysis,
including three tree-based models (LGBM,
XGBoost, and RF), nonlinear SVM, and logistic
regression. To overcome the limitations of a single
algorithm and achieve better rockburst potential
prediction, an ensemble strategy was employed to
combine these algorithms and obtained an EML
model. Furthermore, to effectively extract the opti-
mal combination of parameters for the models, an
improved Jaya algorithm based on Lévy-Flight was
utilized in this study for the optimal parameter search
of the base learners in the EML model. The
performance of the model was evaluated fair using
fivefold cross-validation.
(2) The overfitting phenomenon of base learners was
significantly reduced after LFJaya tuning. The EML
model achieved the best performance among all
methods, with an accuracy of 0.8929, kappa of
0.8453, precision of 0.9023, recall of 0.8417, and F1-
score of 0.8631 on the testing set. Additionally, the
EML model obtained the highest ranking in the
nonparametric statistical test, which strongly con-
firms the effectiveness of the ensemble classifier
proposed in this study.
(3) In contrast to previous rockburst prediction methods,
the LFJaya-EML model proposed in this study
employed SHAP and LIME to provide a new
approach for analyzing the contribution of main
MS parameters to rockburst prediction for better
model interpretation. The parameter contribution
analysis showed that release energy, the number
and intensity of rock fractures are crucial for short-
term rockburst potential prediction, and their com-
plex interactions have a significant combined effect
on prediction.
(4) Finally, a corresponding GUI was constructed based
on the proposed EML for new rockburst data
validation. The results showed that EML can accu-
rately predict the potential levels of six rockburst
events in this deeply buried tunnel according to the
real-time MS monitoring information.
In summary, the combination of EML with real-time
MS monitoring information achieved satisfactory results in
predicting short-term rockburst potential. These results
demonstrate that the EML model has good generalization
and can effectively utilize MS information for short-term
rockburst risk warning. By combining multiple methods in
the EML, the reliability of rockburst potential estimation
and early warning can be improved. Future work could
explore the potential benefits of combining MS information
with other feature types of rock-related data for multi-
variate feature fusion and the expansion of rockburst data.
Acknowledgements This research is partially supported by the
National Natural Science Foundation Project of China (42177164 and
41807259) and the Distinguished Youth Science Foundation of
Hunan Province of China (2022JJ10073).
Declarations
Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no known
competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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