Article

Application of spatial analytical hierarchy process model in land use planning

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Abstract

Growing use of land resources increases the importance of land use planning studies. For this purpose, extended costly and time-consuming studies were carried out which involved wide ranges of environmental, social and economic considerations. There exist variable failures in traditional methods such as lack of a proper handles various criteria and inconsistency of expert opinion in judging relative importance of each criterion which are totally time consuming and costly. This study essentially aims to develop a Decision Support System (DSS) using spatial analytical hierarchy method as one of the multi criteria evaluation methods. As a powerful tool, spatial analytical hierarchy method assists decision makers to determine the most suitable areas for different land uses (rain fed and irrigated agricultures, rangelands and urban development). For this purpose, a lot of criteria like soil, climatic, topographic and socioeconomic parameters were selected. This study effectively represents the handled land use planning analysis. Also, the result of this research indicate that spatial analytical hierarchy method is a powerful decision support system in site selection and land allocation according to various environmental and socioeconomic factors.

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... Nowadays, the need for optimum use of land is extremely greater than ever due to rapid population growth and urban expansion which turn land into a relatively scarce commodity for agricultural and rangeland uses. Therefore, an increasing urgent need to match land capabilities and land uses in the most rational possible way is essential (KheirkhahZarkesh et al. 2010). A suitability study is a preliminary step when assessing whether land or any other area is likely to be practical and successful for sustainable development of an intended venture. ...
... Choosing the suitable method which could handle such a broad data is essential. multi-criteria decision-making analysis is the most proper method that deals with complex decisions involving a large amount of information, a number of alternative outcomes and criteria to assess these outcomes (KheirkhahZarkesh et al. 2010). The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a basic approach for multi-criteria decisionmaking. ...
Conference Paper
As a result of growing population land utilization has tremendously increased. Therefor it's necessary to utilize land along its potential to increase the productivity and sustainability. As the assessing the land suitability is a multifactorial issue, it's needed a special technique to assess all the factors simultaneously. In this way, multi-criteria Decision making methods (such as Analytic hierarchy process) are widely used. The aim of this study is to assess the land suitability with GIS based multi-criteria approach in Ghazvin province in Iran, for its four major crops (wheat, barley, and maize and alfa alfa). In this regard, 11 criteria among soil physical and chemical characteristics, topography and climate factors were selected. Then all the criteria according to expert opinion were pairwise compared in the terms of a" pairwise comparison matrix" with the help of Expert Choice software. The Software computed criteria's weights or its importance coefficient. In the next step, 11 thematic maps from all the criteria were generated (for four crops). Then by using weighted overlay technique final land suitability maps were generated. According to the FAO framework all the generated maps were classified to four classes of suitable (S1), moderately suitable (S2), marginally suitable (S3) and not suitable (N) class. According to the land suitability map for irrigated wheat, 11255.8 ha of study case is highly suitable for wheat cultivation and 1332.764 ha is not suitable for wheat cultivation. For the land suitability map for irrigated Barley, 13173.8 ha of study case is highly suitable for barley cultivation and 364.7 ha is not suitable for barley cultivation. According to the land suitability map for irrigated Alfa Alfa, 12714.67 ha of study case is highly suitable for wheat cultivation and 435.3 ha is not suitable for Alfa Alfa cultivation. For the land suitability map for irrigated Maize, 13312.7 ha of study case is highly suitable for maize cultivation and 676 ha is not suitable for maize cultivation.
... In other words, the suitability of any land for any use should be determined primarily on physical criteria, secondarily on agronomic criteria, and finally, on socio-economic criteria. However, various studies [49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58] have shown that socio-economic factors and variables have always played an important role in land use change. In that case, although socio-economic factors and variables may not have a direct and important role on determining the suitability of lands for agriculture or other uses, through their impacts on land use and cover changes they do affect it. ...
... In that case, although socio-economic factors and variables may not have a direct and important role on determining the suitability of lands for agriculture or other uses, through their impacts on land use and cover changes they do affect it. At the same time, if the type of land use was suitable, future changes in land use are less likely [58][59][60]. ...
Article
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Land-use suitability is the ability of a given type of land to support a defined use. Analysis of land-use suitability requires the consideration of a variety of criteria, not only the natural/physical capacity of a land unit, but also its socioeconomic and environmental impact implications. As land suitability is assessed within a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment, it is formulated as a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem. The study was conducted in the Sangab Plain in northeast Iran. We investigated the study area's suitability for grassland and agricultural uses. A hybrid method of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and GIS methodology was applied to evaluate land suitability based on a set of criteria and sub-criteria. Results showed that 20% of the study area had high (rich), 65% had medium (fair), and 15% had low (poor) suitability for agriculture. In terms of grassland use, the comparable amounts were, respectively, about 7%, 23%, and 70%. The lands of the Sangab Plain have medium potential for agricultural use and low potential for grassland use. This paper used both qualitative and quantitative techniques.
... A factor is a criterion that enhances up or detracts from the suitability of a specific alternative for a considered activity. A constraint serves to limit the alternatives and classify the areas into two classes of unsuitable (value 0) or suitable (value 1) (Boolean Logic) (Zaredar et al., 2010). All map layers were transferred into the same coordinate system of UTM, zone39N. ...
... slope map in percent (%), elevation map in meter (m). Thereby, in order to compare criteria maps with each other, all values should be standardized and transformed into the same measurement unit (Kheirkhah Zarkesh et al. 2010). In this research, the map layers were standardized using fuzzy logic based on a value set of between 0 and 1 or 0 and 255 and as well as membership functions (Equations 1 and 2). ...
Article
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In the past two decades, the use of linear features has often been investigated in cartographic quality control, and various methods have been proposed for such a purpose. In this sense, this paper aims at describing the methods of the Epsilon Band (areas’ method), Simple Buffer, Double Buffer, Hausdorff’s Distance and Vertex’s Influence in the assessment of planimetric positional accuracy by means of linear features, using as standard the Decree-Law number 89,817/ ET-ADGV, and after this, compare them with the traditional method by points. On the one hand, planimetric positional accuracy was evaluated in a orthoimage Ikonos, where results showed that the methods of the Epsilon Band, Hausdorff’s Distance and Vertex’s Influence presented similar results, obtaining “class B” rating on the scale 1: 10,000. On the other hand the methods Simple Buffer and Double Buffer presented similar results to traditional method by points, which in turn were more restrictive than the previously mentioned methods, classifying the orthoimage as “Class C” in 1: 10,000 scale.
... In this study criteria were selected using the literature reviews of internal and external references, interviewing with experts (questionnaires) and availability of data ( It should be noted that for preventing bias thought criteria weighting the Consistency Ratio was used [15][16][17][18] ...
... Where, SI is the suitability index of each cells; N is the number of main criteria; RIA1, RIA2 …RIAN are the relative importance of the main criteria A1, A2 …AN, respectively; m, i and j are the number of sub criteria directly connected to the main criteria A1, A2 …AN, respectively; RIB, RIC and RID are the relative importance of sub criteria B, C and D directly connected to the main criteria A1, A2 …AN, respectively; RIKB, RIKC and RIKD are the relative importance of indicators category k of sub criteria B, C and D and main criteria A1, A2 …AN, respectively [15][16][17][18][19][20] . ...
Article
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Nowadays there are formidable challenges facing decision makers in order to rangeland management. Allocation of limited rangelands among the various stakeholders, lack of sufficient environmental policies for sustainable use of rangelands as well as degradation of these areas have caused increasing concern among managers and revealed the importance of Land suitability analysis. As regards a broad range of criteria is required for performing effective land suitability selecting of appropriate method to handle such wide heterogeneous criteria. Spatial Analytical Hierarchy Process method as a commonly use method of compensatory model is a suitable tool for this purpose. The main aim of this paper is to examine a relatively new method of multi criteria evaluation by using spatial analytical hierarchy method for determining the most suitable areas for rangelands in Taleghan basin. Results indicate that the spatial analytical hierarchy process is a powerful support system resolving different uses of land suitability issues in the region. Index Terms—Spatial analytical hierarchy process; land suitability evaluation; rangeland use; Taleghan Basin; Multiple criteria evaluation.
... AHP is a logical and credible strategy in a GIS context that combines objective and subjective ideas to make decisions by examining a number of criteria based on expert opinions. (Ying et al., 2007) The right weighting and normalization of each parameter are critical for obtaining suitable results because they are the sole factors that determine the final conclusion (Zarkesh et al., 2010). ...
... AHP is a logical and credible strategy in a GIS context that combines objective and subjective ideas to make decisions by examining a number of criteria based on expert opinions. (Ying et al., 2007) The right weighting and normalization of each parameter are critical for obtaining suitable results because they are the sole factors that determine the final conclusion (Zarkesh et al., 2010). ...
Article
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In order to minimize human impact on the environment, it is crucial to determine the best way to utilize land through assessments of its suitability. This research focuses on the Anantnag district in the Kashmir valley, exploring its potential as a suitable area for mulberry agroforestry. Consequently, the selection of suitable sites for mulberry-based agroforestry has become an essential element of sustainable land use planning and agriculture, with the aim of maintaining ecological equilibrium. In the context of a Geographic Information System (GIS), we employ a method called multi-criteria assessment to evaluate the suitability of a specific site for mulberry agroforestry in the study area. This assessment involves considering various factors such as slope, temperature, rainfall, land use and land cover (LULC), as well as the physical and chemical properties of the soil. To assign scores to these criteria, we utilized the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique, conducted interviews with local experts, and referred to existing literature. By applying a weighted overlay analysis, which takes into account the importance of each parameter, we generated a map depicting the suitability of the research area for mulberry agroforestry. The map for mulberry agroforestry suitability in the study area indicates that 16.59% of the land is highly suitable, 28.16% is moderately suitable, 40.29% is marginally suitable, and 14.96% is unsuitable. To ensure the accuracy of the findings, satellite images, Sentinel-2b LULC mapping, and GPS-enabled field surveys were extensively employed to verify the results. These findings can be utilized by farmers, regional developers, and the government to inform their decisions regarding potential mulberry agroforestry areas and develop sustainable agroforestry management strategies for the region.
... As a result of fast population growth and urban expansion, land has become a relatively scarce commodity for agricultural and rangeland purposes, and the demand for efficient land use is greater than ever. There is a growing requirement to match land capabilities and uses as efficiently as feasible (Zarkesh et al. 2010). Sustainable agricultural development is one of the HKH Region's major concerns. ...
Chapter
The Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region is one of the largest and most diversified mountain settings in the world, having several parallel mountain ranges. Mountains cover nearly 24% of the land surface in the World and directly support over 12% of the world’s population that lives in these areas. About 20% of the world’s population derives a wide variety of ecosystem services from the mountains, including food, water, energy, timber, bioresources, and fodders for the livestock. Because of their geographical isolation and singular biophysical setting, many HKH areas exhibit high levels of endemism and rapid evolutionary processes. Mountain agriculture is complex and interacts with biophysical, socio-cultural and agro-ecological factors for making food and social life security decisions. Fragmented and small holding size, limited access to inputs, credits, demands driven technologies and services further constrain agricultural development in the mountains of HKH. The farmers across the HKH region practise subsistence farming that depends on forest resources. This is mostly due to severe climatic conditions and lack of market facilities. Improper land use and climate change have increased stress on mountain ecosystems in the region. Overgrazing is widespread and plant biomass is releasing carbon from peat land and underground soils due to livestock pressure. The high alpine meadows are particularly under threat as topsoil cover is being eroded by water and strong winds, making restoration of vegetation more difficult. The degradation of the rangelands is also forcing nomads to change their profession. Some case studies conducted in Afghanistan, Nepal and Pakistan suggest that decreased rainfall in rangelands has often resulted in increase of degraded area and accelerated desertification, affecting the livestock development. The Tibetan Plateau is highly prone to heating, drying, and more extreme weather conditions, which is having pronounced impacts on rangelands besides influencing the Asian monsoon system. Range and pasture lands account for over 60% of the surface of the HKH mountains. The impact of climate change has caused sharp declines in fodder productivity and animal carrying capacity and has also endangered the socio-economic fabric and wellbeing of pastoral communities. On acid soils, highly responsive crops like cotton, soybean, pigeon pea, groundnut, French-bean, etc. should be grown in the first year of liming. This should be followed by medium responsive crops like maize and wheat in the subsequent seasons. Cultivation of lowest responsive crops like millets, rice, barley, linseed, etc. should be done in the last season/year prior to commencement of the next liming schedule. While choosing crops for mountains, one major point needs to be considered is the local needs and preferences. The horticultural crops are relatively more suited in HKH mountains. Food security in the Hindu Kush Himalayas depends mainly on local production and purchasing power of the people. Fragile environment, depleted natural resource systems, limited availability of suitable land for large-scale production, physical inaccessibility, and poor local infrastructure are responsible for food insecurity in the Himalayas.KeywordsConservation agricultureCrop productionFertilizer useForces of changeIntegrated plant nutrient managementLand use and managementMountain agricultureNatural resources
... Many authors applied the land suitability analysis in different fields: Identification of the appropriate site of prawn farming [1], allocation of land for agriculture [15], and identification of suitable site for shrimp ponds [16,17]. Other fields comprise selecting appropriate sites for land use planning [18][19][20][21], the development of urban aquaculture [22], and prioritize demolitions of city buildings [23]. Also Chandio et al. [24] applied the land suitability analysis to determine a proper site for hillside development, Trinh et al. [25] mapping of areas susceptible to landslide, while Rahmat et al. [26] and Şener et al. [27] applied it to identify possible sites for landfills. ...
Article
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Water and soil qualities play significant roles in the farming of giant freshwater prawn. The study evaluated water and soil qualities for giant freshwater prawn farming site suitability by using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Geographic Information System (GIS) in Jelebu, Malaysia. The water quality parameters measured were biochemical oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, ammonia nitrogen, pH, dissolved oxygen, water temperature, total suspended solids, nitrite concentration and phosphate concentration, meanwhile soil qualities investigated were land use, slope, pH, texture, organic carbon and organic matter. Site suitability analysis can assist to identify the best location for prawn production. Specialist's opinions were used to rank the level of preference and significance of each of the parameter while the pairwise comparison matrix was applied to calculate the weight of each parameter for prawn farming. There are about 45.41% of the land was most suitable, 28.89% was moderately suitable while 25.69% was found unsuitable for prawn farming. The combination of AHP and GIS could give a better database and guide map for planners and decision-makers to take more rewarding decisions when apportioning the land for prawn farming, for better productivity.
... Applying a multi-criteria decisionmaking (MCDM) method is a way to overcome this issue. A popular method of MCDM used by many researchers worldwide (Abbaspour et al. 2015;Jozi et al. 2011;Kheirkhah et al. 2010;Lai et al. 2015;Nosal and Solecka 2014) is the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). AHP has been introduced as a fast, easy, and effective technique for the decisionmaking process that has a powerful ability to handle planning problems with a systematic approach. ...
Article
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The main purpose of this paper is to define appropriate criteria for the systematic approach to evaluate and prioritize multiple candidate corridors for public transport investment simultaneously to serve travel demand, regarding supply of current public transportation system and road network conditions of Isfahan, Iran. To optimize resource allocation, policymakers need to identify proper corridors to implement a public transportation system. In fact, the main question is to adopt the best public transportation system for each main corridor of Isfahan. In this regard, 137 questionnaires were completed by experts, directors, and policymakers of Isfahan to identify goals and objectives in the field of urban transportation. In the next step, objectives were prioritized by a multi-criteria decisionmaking method. Afterward, for the main 35 corridors of the city, available information, including trip demands toward main destinations of studied corridors derived from Isfahan comprehensive transportation studies and number of passengers of bus lines, were collected. Finally, 3,906 taxi passengers were interviewed at the end points of each corridor. The role of each policy in improvement of the objectives was assessed by expert choices, and suitable public transportation policies in studied corridors were defined by clustering parameters and converting them into weighted criteria. Mass transportation and implementation of road space rationing policies had
... Such a process is called making dimensionless (ILWIS User's Guide, 2004). In this study, in order to standardization of distance and buffer maps such as distance from protected areas, distance from surface water, distance from population centers, the cost and benefit analysis was used while one of the compensatory methods; AHP was applied for making dimensionless of the rest criteria (Kheirkhah Zarkesh et al, 2010). ...
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TOPICS Biophilia and urban planning | Biopolitics and design | Human health and design | Epistemology of architecture and urban planning | Peer to peer urbanism | Morphogenetic design | Sustainability | Renewable energy | Urban greening | Ecological networks | Architecture, urban and environmental planning | Landscape ecology and planning | Design learning strategies | Participatory design and planning | Information and communication technology | Multi-criteria analyses for urban planning | Land suitability evaluation I S S N 2 2 4 0-2 5 3 5
... Nowadays, the need for optimum use of land is extremely greater than ever due to rapid population growth and urban expansion which turn land into a relatively scarce commodity for agricultural and rangeland uses. Therefore, an increasing urgent need to match land capabilities and land uses in the most rational possible way is essential (Zarkesh et al. 2010). ...
Article
Full-text available
This paper offers an integrated approach to contribute to the process of agricultural land suitability analysis using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Geographic Information System (GIS) methods. The paper addresses Cihanbeyli, the largest county in Turkey in terms of area, and focuses on determining sustainable strategies to activate/improve agriculture as a main source of income, thereby improving the economy of the region. The combined AHP and GIS methodology which consists of stages such as structuring AHP hierarchy, describing evaluation criteria, doing pairwise comparisons, and preparing criterion maps and land suitability maps has been applied to identify the areas suitable for irrigated and dry farm agriculture. A comparison of the final land suitability map with current land use has revealed that an area of 294.73 km2 (7.18 %) is suitable for irrigation and an area of 2323.45 km2 (56.77 %) is suitable for dry farm agriculture. Additionally, the analysis clearly shows the necessity of a decrease in irrigated agricultural land and an increase in dry farm agricultural land. The applied AHP and GIS based agricultural land suitability analysis is useful in (1) referring agricultural activities to the areas that have good physical and environmental conditions for agriculture, thus achieving maximum agricultural efficiency in countryside, (2) improving non-agricultural uses in the areas that are unsuitable for agriculture and have low efficiency, (3) avoiding the construction and environmental pressures on suitable farmland, so conducing to better land-use planning decisions.
... Additionally, Scwenk (2002) indicated assessment of ecotourism or simple nature tourism does not need more facilities and depends on locally obtained facilities or natural capital of the poor that can be managed locally. Compared with the traditional model in which some important factors is ignored due to its limited ability in simultaneous consideration of all effective criteria as well as poor integration and weighting manner, can be easily inferred that such a model cannot be held accountable in watershed decision-making levels, especially in small and complex physiographic conditions (Hsu and Hu, 2008;Saaty, 1980;Kheirkhah Zarkesh et al., 2010). ...
Article
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Ecotourism planning is a very complex activity since there are several aims, which should be achieved simultaneously, and a lot of components and elements, which must be considered. The goal of current study is to prepare a revised model for ecological capability evaluation for better planning management of centralized ecotourism and then comparing prepared methods, including, Makhdoum Ecological model (3 classes) using Boolean Logic and Revised Model (3 classes) using Geometric mean evaluation. Results showed that the revised method (3classes) using geometric mean evaluation is the better than Makhdoum model, due to more flexibility in classes. Although, the study area based on results is often suitable for extensive ecotourism compared to centralized Ecotourism.
... Furthermore, Scwenk (2002) indicated assessment of ecotourism or simple nature tourism does not need more facilities and depends on locally obtained facilities or natural capital of the poor that can be managed locally. Compared with the traditional model in which some important factors is ignored due to its limited ability in simultaneous consideration of all effective criteria as well as poor integration and weighting manner, can be easily inferred that such a model cannot be held accountable in watershed decision-making levels, especially in small and complex physiographic conditions (Hsu and Hu, 2008;Saaty, 1980;Kheirkhah Zarkesh et al., 2010). ...
Article
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Ecotourism is an important landuse of the world. Ecotourism planning is a very complex activity with a lot of components and elements, which must be considered. The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the use of ecotourism in Firuzabad Township using two models. The revised model for ecological capability evaluation for better planning management of centralized Ecotourism and then comparing prepared methods, including, Makhdoum Ecological model (3 classes) using Boolean Logic and Revised Model (3 classes) using Geometric mean evaluation. Results showed that the revised method (3classes) using geometric mean evaluation is the better than Makhdoum model, due to more flexibility in classes. Although, the study area based on results is often suitable for extensive ecotourism compared to centralized Ecotourism.
... The landscape as system, elaboration from Bartel (2000) structured into a series of macro-categories. The identification of indicators, their location and hierarchical organization obtained through the application of the Analytic Hierarchic Process (AHP) method (Saaty, 1980(Saaty, , 1999Saaty & Vargas, 2001;Cerreta & De Toro, 2010;Kheirkhah Zarkesh, Ghoddusi, Zaredar, Soltani, Jafari & Ghadirpour, 2010;Cerreta & De Toro, 2012a, 2012b, 2012c enable the representation of a landscape complexity map which serves to support the decision-making process and is useful in identifying and selecting transformation or mitigation actions to be implemented in the area. ...
Article
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The paper seeks to highlight how the character and values of marginal landscapes can be considered examples of the “third landscape” and how they can enable the mapping of tangible and intangible change (and its relative effects) through the selection of appropriate spatial indicators. A Dynamic Spatial Decision Support System was constructed to help identify the complex values characterizing a selected area in Naples’ marginal urban landscape. The System consists of a set of selected indicators that represent the area’s distinguishing characteristics with specific focus on its critical and potential factors. The formulation of spatial indicators helps identify the ecological, socio-economic and urban characteristics of the case-study area, along with their historic evolution over a specific time period. Time History Analysis (THA) enables the identification of permanent elements and transformations along with the relationships among the various urban landscape components over time. The synergistic interaction between the appropriately structured Geographic Information System (GIS) and the multi-criteria Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method help to generate a complex values map of the analyzed landscape to support the definition and location of strategic actions.
... After structuring the criteria in the decision tree, in the next step, the pair-wise comparison matrix was used to weight them. According to this, each level of the hierarchy as well as each pair of the criteria and sub-criteria were compared pair-wise and prioritized using a nine-point scale presented by Saaty in 1980(Kheirkhah Zarkesh et al., 2010. Table 1 shows the judgment scale for the pair-wise comparisons. ...
Article
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Geographical Information System (GIS)-based multi-criteria decision-making is greatly used in situations of complex, spatial decision-making involving simultaneous consideration of a variety of criteria. In the current survey, the GIS is used to identify and study the vulnerable zones and the ecotourism status in Ilam Province. In order to evaluate the geographical information of the province, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) model was used as one of the most applicable multi-criteria decision-making methods to make a base for selecting of criteria. Based upon the selected criteria, the maps elevation, slope, land cover, springs, roads, recreational and residential areas were provided. After making the map layers GIS ready, the selected criteria were weighted using Expert Choice Software. In the final step, the weighted criteria maps were overplayed using GIS in which the suitable ecotourism areas were specified. The research procedure indicates that the GIS-based multi-criteria decision-making could be quite a capable approach to handle a variety of criteria affecting site attraction for ecotourism development. In general, this empirical research develops a new methodology that can greatly enhance ecotourism planning with respect to determining site-attraction characteristics.
... Spatial analysis combined with multi-criteria methods has been used in recent years to support evaluation, especially in the field of land-use planning. GIS was integrated with an outranking multi-criteria method called ELECTRE-TRI [41,51,68], or with multi-criteria analysis using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), involving not only technical aspects, but also physical, economical, social, environmental and political aspects [69,70]. GIS and Multi-Criteria Analysis also provided better insight into the consequences of possible alternatives supporting stakeholders' participation, using the software package DEFINITE [71]. ...
Article
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Evaluation is increasingly important in decision-making processes for the sustainable planning and design of port plans. It acts as a support for plan preparation, for making values, interests and needs explicit, and for exploring the components of the decision-making process itself. Evaluation can be likened to an "implicit tool" that can integrate approaches, methodologies and models, adapting to the many needs revealed during the decision-making process. New sustainability challenges call for new approaches to creating frameworks for the analysis and evaluation of plans and projects that allow the integration of multidimensional goals and values. Utilizing some selected case studies of port plans in six Italian cities, this paper explores how environmental assessment can become a tool for dialog and interaction among different fields of expertise to support dynamic learning processes, knowledge management and the creation of shared choices, using suitable approaches and tools. In this view, Integrated Spatial Assessment (ISA) can be useful in supporting decision-making processes on different scales and institutional levels to stimulate dialog between technical and political evaluations, referring to complex values that are part of conflicting and changing realities in which it has become imperative to operate according to sustainability principles.
... Meanwhile, AHP as a commonly MCE Method (Zaredar, 2011) can be applied as an appropriate tool in finding inconsistent judgment (Kheirkhah Zarkesh, 2005;Saaty, 1980Saaty, , 1988Saaty, , 1990. Compared with the traditional model in which some important factors is ignored due to its limited ability in simultaneous consideration of all effective criteria as well as poor integration and weighting manner, can be easily inferred that such a model can not be held accountable in watershed decision-making levels, especially in small and complex physiographic conditions (Hsu and Hu, 2008;Saaty, 1980;Kheirkhah Zarkesh et al., 2010). ...
Article
Study ahead, aims at examination of applicability of multi criteria evaluation in land suitability analysis. In recent years, multiple criteria decision making models have been entered in the field of ecological land evaluation studies significantly. Among the important features of multiple criteria decision-making system can be named its involving with various factors weight, or quantifying experts' opinions in decision-making models. In this study, a region with an extent of 7181 ha was selected in Dohezar Basin (located on northern part of Iran) in which the land capability was evaluated for tourism land use using multi criteria evaluation. All criteria were weighed using experts' opinion and relevant standards and ultimately areas were selected as suitable places for tourism which have the highest suitability. Compared with the traditional model in which some important factors is ignored due to its limited ability in simultaneous consideration of all effective criteria as well as poor integration and weighting, can be easily inferred that such a model can not be held accountable in watershed decision-making levels, especially in small and complex physiographic conditions. In multiple criteria evaluation methods, all the indicators after forming the decision matrix and weighting process, were integrated and classified based on the rating received for tourism potentiality, and the suitability map for the tourism land use was prepared. The results of this approach, while consistent with the existing conditions, also has made possible the appropriate decision making to allocate the land to different land uses.
... Many researchers worldwide have proved capability of AHP method. As such, Kheirkhah Zarkesh et al. (2010) introduced AHP as a powerful decision making method with an extraordinary ability to han- dle planning group with a systematic approach. Jozi et al. (2011) evaluated AHP a suitable technique for complex decision- making situations. ...
... The mentioned method performs based on weight mean where decision makers directly specify the weight of each parameter upon relative importance. Afterward, total score which represents the suitability is calculated as follows 1, 23 : S = ∑ xi wi (2) S = suitability; Wi = weight of factor i, xi = dimensionless value of factor i. ...
Article
Field studies showed that middle area of Taleghan watershed is currently applied as recreational sites for urban as well as rural inhabitants. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate the environmental capabilities of the studied area to find the most appropriate places as recreational sites. For this purpose, numerous studies are to be carried out considering variable criteria and selection of the suited management solutions amongst numerous alternatives is to be performed. Traditional methods require costly and time-wasting plans which lack sufficient accuracy. In this study, spatial multicriteria evaluation based on fuzzy methods as well as analytical hierarchy process were applied to locate the recreational sites. Results showed the advantages of the studied method in comparison with Boolean logic. Also, analytical hierarchy process is an appropriate tool for locating various land uses.
... Finding a suitable method of land use aimed to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for future generations [3].Evaluation of ecological capability carried out using various methods is a basic study to achieve sustainable development goals. Since these kinds of studies involves many qualitative and quantitative criteria and also differentiation of stakeholders, which makes decision making process difficult, choosing of suitable method for handling such a broad data is an very important [7]. In the study ahead, ecological capability of Varjin protected area for developing extensive recreation has been evaluated based on AHP method using Geographical Information System in 2008.The AHP was developed by Saaty in the 1970s [14,13] as a suitable tools to multi-objective decision making. ...
Article
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Growing use of natural resources reveals the importance of land capability evaluation studies. But caring out such studies involve considering a lot of criteria in different aspects like environmental and socio economic factors. Meanwhile traditional studies have many deficiencies including being expensive and time consuming as well as lack of a proper handle of various qualitative and quantitative criteria. This study aims to investigate the land evaluation of Varjin, a protected area near the Tehran, for implementation of extensive recreations using spatial analytical hierarchy process. Existence of many natural attractive sceneries as well as proximity to the capital city of Tehran caused this region to be a suitable area for recreational purposes. Totally, 16 layers information are utilized as criterion maps for evaluation of extensive recreational potential usage. Results showed that, totally 63.17% of 26907 ha from the area for implementation of extensive recreation were recognized as suitable. Also result of this study showed the effectiveness of spatial analytical hierarchy process in land analysis issues.
... Nowadays, it is highly recommended to implement development plans just in accordance with the potential of resources and environmental carrying capacity in order to achieve sustainable development (Witlox 2005;Arán Carrión et al. 2008;Yallop and Clutterbuck 2009;Kheirkhah Zarkesh et al. 2010). The efficient use of natural resources requires deep understanding of land capabilities before any decision for further development. ...
Article
The present study was carried out to evaluate agricultural capability of a watershed located in Khuzestan; a province in southern Iran. It is aimed to examine the applicability of Multi Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methods in site selection process. Accordingly, the ecological resources of the watershed were initially identified. To specify the criteria required for agricultural land evaluation, Delphi method was applied. After selecting the criteria, they were weighted using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) Method. Weighted Overlay (WO) Method was also used to overlay the map layers in the GIS environment. Afterwards, sensitivity analysis was performed using Weights Sensitivity Analysis (WSA) method to show the impressibility rate of the results against a certain changes in the inputs. The results revealed that out of 6591.2 ha of the total watershed area, 50.8 % has unsuitable potentiality while 27.32 % has a poor suitability for irrigated agriculture. It was also determined that only 6.96 % of the whole study area has a suitable potential for this purpose. Besides, the findings indicated that 23.38 % of the total watershed area is unsuitable for rain-fed farming. the results also showed that 31.78 % and 19.12 % of the entire study area has moderate and high potentials for rain-fed agriculture, respectively. In a general overview, this study could present how MCDM is effective in handling land capability studies.
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Chapter
The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a problem solving framework. It is a systematic procedure for representing the elements of any problem. It organizes the basic rationality by breaking down a problem into its smaller constituent parts and then calls for only simple pairwise comparison judgments, to develop priorities in each hierarchy.
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PRELIMINARIES. Geographical Data, Information, and Decision Making. Introduction to GIS. Introduction to Multicriteria Decision Analysis. SPATIAL MULTICRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS. Evaluation Criteria. Decision Alternatives and Constraints. Criterion Weighing. Decision Rules. Sensitivity Analysis. MULTICRITERIA-SPATIAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS. Spatial Decision Support Systems. MC-SDSS: Case Studies. Glossary. Selected Bibliography. Indexes.
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Decisions involve many intangibles that need to be traded off. To do that, they have to be measured along side tangibles whose measurements must also be evaluated as to, how well, they serve the objectives of the decision maker. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a theory of measurement through pairwise comparisons and relies on the judgements of experts to derive priority scales. It is these scales that measure intangibles in relative terms. The comparisons are made using a scale of absolute judgements that represents, how much more, one element dominates another with respect to a given attribute. The judgements may be inconsistent, and how to measure inconsistency and improve the judgements, when possible to obtain better consistency is a concern of the AHP. The derived priority scales are synthesised by multiplying them by the priority of their parent nodes and adding for all such nodes. An illustration is included.. He is internationally recognised for his decision-making process, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and its generalisation to network decisions, the Analytic Network Process (ANP). He won the Gold Medal from the International Society for Multicriteria Decision Making for his contributions to this field. His work is in decision making, planning, conflict resolution and in neural synthesis.
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Land suitability evaluation in a raster GIS environment is conceptualized as a multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. A combination of MCDM techniques selected for implementing the methodology included value and priority assessment techniques for scaling the interval and ordinal data respectively, and compromise programming (CP) to aggregate the unidimensional evaluations. The contribution of the proposed methodology to handle problems of scaling and dependence that often affect expert-based suitability analyses is discussed. A case-study of habitat evaluation for the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel is presented. The multiple-criteria models resulting from the CP analysis of an expert's perception of the habitat preference structure of the red squirrel are compared with data of actual habitat use. The predictive power of the models is good and sensitivity analysis based on the distance-metric parameter p of CP reveals some interesting differences between alternative strategies for data aggregation.
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Internet, a client/server system, is a perfect means of GIS data accessing, analyzing and transmission. The World Wide Web, FTP (file transfer protocol) and HTTP programs make it convenient to access and transfer data files across the Internet. Using Internet for GIS makes it easy access to acquire GIS data from diverse data sources in the distributed environment. The geospatial multicriteria decision analysis in a client/server environment is an important and challenging task for the GIS community because of narrow Internet bandwidth for large geospatial data sets. In the present paper, we are developing a multicriteria decision analysis tool for spatial decision making in the web GIS environment. The developed system has been demonstrated for biodiversity conservation and priorities. An attempt has been made to generate the alternative decisions based on priority vectors. The multicriteria technique of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to derive the eigen vectors with the given multiple constraints of conflicting criteria and aims at selecting optimal alternative from the available sets. However, the evaluation recognizes the importance of expert knowledge when assigning the weights for the best spatial priorities. Comparing within classes and alternatives using judgment and decision matrix is based on Saaty’s Pairwise Comparison. The Multicriteria Spatial Decision Support System (MC-SDSS) software development uses ASP, ArcIMS 9.0, ArcSDE9.0 and Oracle 9i data server in the web GIS environment. The database organization of spatial and non-spatial data is done in the RDBMS environment using ArcSDE and Oracle 9i data server.
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Keywords: DSS, remote sensing, GIS. spatial multi-criteria evaluation, analytical hierarchy process, floodwater spreading, groundwater recharge, Iran.Most aquifers of semi-arid Iran suffer from over-exploitation of groundwater for irrigation. It is therefore important to augment the groundwater resource by artificial recharge, using flood waters that flow into salt lakes or in the sea. The recharge schemes consist generally of diversion of part of the flood discharges of ephemeral rivers in small to medium sized catchments onto infiltration basins.Apart from recharge of groundwater, supporting food production and drinking water supplies, the schemes have other benefits, such as mitigation of flood damages and 'greening of the desert'. Many governments, including the one of Iran, place now much emphasis on increasing the number of floodwater spreading schemes.A large number of factors play a role in the selection of the most suitable sites for deciding on investment in a scheme. These factors pertain to earth science (geology, geomorphology, soils), to hydrology (runoff and sediment yield, infi!tration and groundwater conditions) and to socio-economic aspects (irrigated agriculture, flood damage mitigation, environment, job creation and so on). Hence, the decision depends on criteria ofdiverse nature.This thesis deals with developing a Decision Support System (DSS) to assist decisions as to where the most suitable catchments and associated infiltration areas are and to work out options of types of schemes, which are adjusted to the characteristics ofthe selected infiltration area (the site available).After discussion of the bio-physical setting for flood spreading schemes in the Introduction (Chapter 1), attention is given to the selection ofthe desired approach for multi-criteria evaluation in Chapter 2. The Analytical Hierarchical Processes (AHP) approach was considered to be appropriate for the problem at hand and use was made of the spatial extension of this approach in a GIS environment, after structuring all the major criteria for a flood spreading scheme.Of key importance is of course the expected infiltration of flood water diverted. For such an a-priori estimate the effect of soil textures in a soil column on infiltration and percolation have to be made, as well as an estimate of the effects of sedimentation of clay and sand in a scheme, as well as effect of inundation depth and flooding frequency. One-dimensional soil modelling was done with the SWAP model. Chapter 3, using two pedo-transfer functions for the hydraulic parameters based on textures. It was found that for coarse textured soils there was reasonable agreement between functions used, but quite some differences were found for the soils containing clay and silt. As expected, recharge efficiency was positively affected by inundation depth and by rapid succession of inundations.Because simulation results differed, the recharge of the complex and large Sorkhehesar scheme was analysed, by developing a spreadsheet programme to work out depths, areas and duration of inundation. Chapter 4. It was found that the Mnalem-van Genuchten transfer function was the most appropriate one.Given the large number of ephemeral rivers draining hilly catchments and passing through alluvial areas, is necessary to first use a rapid screening method to obtain zones which contain promising areas, for which the main criteria are applicable. The screening depends heavily on interpretation of remotely sensed images, which have the advantage that various aspects are presented in a synoptic view. The interpretation has to have a firm footing in earth science because runoff and sediment delivery processes have to be estimated in qualitative terms, as well as aquifer properties. A number of examples from Iran have been described in Chapter 5, highlighting the importance of transmission losses.In order to select the most suitable area among the promising ones, the spatial AHP was applied in the Varamin zone under consideration of a multitude of criteria, in Chapter 6. The difficulty in the application was to develop and specify the preferences that are the base of the relative importance values for all the decision criteria involved at different levels, once the various factors had been estimated using standard hydrological and other methods. The use of the linguistic measures of preferences in the pair-wise comparisons made it possible to implement the full procedure, even though data differed much in nature, consistency and quality. In the Varamin zone, the Chandab catchment and infiltration area came out as the ''most satisfying" area; it had the highest sum of utilities for three of the four objectives and the highest score in a combination scenario.For the Chandab infiltration site, a spreadsheet model was developed to work out various options with regard to type of scheme (shallow basin or deep basin type) and size of scheme, resulting in the expected volumes of recharge during the lifetime of the scheme by assuming desilting operations. Of the additional benefits, the flood damage mitigation could be expressed in monetary terms, and that benefit had a profound effect on the cost per unit volume of recharge water if one opts for the two large sized scheme designs.To our knowledge, this study presents for the first time information on costs and benefits of a flood water spreading scheme in Iran in a structured manner of various designs adjusted to a particular site.The final conclusion (Chapter 8) states that the DSS described here, with its three stages of increasing focus and associated data requirements and with the approach for evaluation using a multitude of criteria of diverse nature, has proven to be applicable and an efficient way to select the most appropriate alternatives for making a choice for investment in a flood spreading scheme. Although the emphasis was on Iranian conditions, the DSS is essentially of generic nature and may be applied ~ mutatis mutandis- to other semi arid regions.
Article
In this study the most proper land-use type is determined in order to succeed a goal of rural development of a village near Bolu. Alpagut Village located within the Seben District of Bolu was chosen as a case study of this project, in which three different land-use types (arable and garden farming, meadow-pasture and recreation-tourism) were evaluated by assessing the village`s selected features and putting them in order of importance. For this purpose, first, natural resources and social-cultural features of the village were determined. Then, using results from previous studies and recommendations of professional people factors have been determined for each alternate land-use type to create Suitability Values (SV). Then, factors affecting the study were grouped according to AHP, Analytical Hierarchy Process. Pair-wise comparisons and the experts` grading were used to calculate relative weight (eigenvector) of each factor. In this study, eigenvectors were treated as suitability coefficient (SC). Both suitability values and suitability coefficients were used to create suitability maps of each factor using geographic information systems (GIS). Results showed that the most suitable land use type is recreation-tourism to improve rural progress in Alpagut Village, Bolu. While next suitable land use type was found to be arable and garden farming, meadow-pasture was the least suitable.
Geographic Information Systems and Environmental Modeling
  • K C Clarke
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Clarke, K. C., Parks, B. O. and Crane, M. P. 2002. Geographic Information Systems and Environmental Modeling. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
IDRISI Kilimanjaro Tutorial. Manual Version
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Eastman, J. 2003b. IDRISI Kilimanjaro Tutorial. Manual Version 14.00, Clark Labs, Clark University, USA.
The Future of Our Land: Facing the Challenge. Guidelines for Integrated Planning for Sustainable Management of Land Resources
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FAO UNEP 1999. The Future of Our Land: Facing the Challenge. Guidelines for Integrated Planning for Sustainable Management of Land Resources. Rome, Italy.
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ILWIS User's Guide 2004. International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Science (ITC), Enschede, The Netherlands.
A GIS-based multi criteria approach to land suitability assessment and allocation
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Mendoza, G. A. 1997. A GIS-based multi criteria approach to land suitability assessment and allocation. Proceedings, 7 th international Symposium on Systems Analysis in Forest Resources, 28-31 May, Traverse City, Michigan.
Land Suitability Analysis for Agricultural Crops: A Fuzzy. Multi Criteria Decision Making Approach. MSc. thesis, ITC, International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth observation
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Prakash, T. N. 2003. Land Suitability Analysis for Agricultural Crops: A Fuzzy. Multi Criteria Decision Making Approach. MSc. thesis, ITC, International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth observation, Enschede, The Netherlands.
The Analytic Hierarchy Process
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Saaty, T. L. 1980. The Analytic Hierarchy Process. McGraw-Hill, New York.