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Evaluating land suitability analysis for urban services planning in coal clusters of Punjab using AHP, WOM, and TOPSIS method
Abstract
Accelerated urbanization and haphazard expansion of cities results in infrastructure damages, deterioration of agriculture land and water quality, and many microclimatic changes. The unparalleled growth in population put pressure on leap-frog development and uneven distribution of public facilities. The present study endeavored the urban land suitability map for urban services planning in Khushab and Mianwali district, Pakistan. The suitability assessment is carried out through geostatistical modeling and multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) including analytical hierarchical process (AHP) and technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). Various influencing criteria, i.e., social considerations, utilities, physical existence of an area, and environmental aspects were considered including population density, proximity to educational institutes, medical services, and distances to water bodies and road networks, land use/land cover (LULC), and slope, elevation parameters for evaluating land suitability of targeted area of interest. The findings of the current investigation reveal that the core portion of the studied area are more suitable for providing urban amenities while the areas at peripheral side does not have adequate facilities for urban expansion. Moreover, peripheral sides are mostly occupied by mining areas; therefore, abandoned mines should be replaced by protected areas. The study not only facilities the provision of information on the existing urban land use patterns but also on suitability of land for the future urban establishments.
... Once a pairwise matrix is formed, the relative weight of each influencing factor is calculated. However, All applications of the AHP methods are grounded in a subjective approach during the mutual comparison of alternatives (Saleem et al., 2022). Distinguishing importance between elements can be challenging, especially when the number of elements is less than seven. ...
... It makes comprehensive decisions that consider the influence of multiple factors for a specific purpose in a fuzzy environment. Fuzzy comprehensive evaluation transforms qualitative problems into quantitative problems through membership theory, allowing for the effective evaluation of social phenomena that are challenging to quantify (Saleem et al., 2022). ...
The financial performance of a listed company is a common concern for shareholders, creditors, employees, securities analysts, and the government. Measuring and forecasting financial performance informs stakeholders about a company's overall well-being. In this study, we propose a hybrid approach that combines grey relation analysis, Self-Organized Mapping (SOM) neural network, and convolutional neural network to assess the financial performance of listed companies. Grey relation analysis measures financial performance, SOM neural network clusters, and convolutional neural network forecasts. Compared to other models, the hybrid convolutional neural network model has a better predictive effect, accurately forecasting the financial status of listed companies. Findings also reveal that 70.93 percent of listed companies in agriculture, forestry, husbandry, and fisheries have a poor financial status.
... Geographical factors 12 [32][33][34] slope and the distance from the coast Ecological factors 8 [35,36] forests and wetlands Population factors 3 [37] population density Economic factors 7 [38,39] the existing city, the distance from the central business district, the distance from the central industrial area, and the distance from the existing city Policy factors 2 [40,41] attraction of protected areas and city clusters Cultural factors 2 [37,42] historical and cultural reserves Infrastructure factors 5 [43,44] distance from highways, distance from main roads, distance from hubs, road density, distance from shoreline Using statistical analysis results, combined with the objective system, predict the future growth trend of urban and rural areas. Experts, the city, and the higher administration managers mainly control urban growth's objectives. ...
The ‘Urban Interaction’ project aims to develop an urban planning model system at the scale of towns or small cities consisting of three modules: growth forecast, land-use decision, and evaluation. This paper presents the framework of the model system to identify and discuss the assumptions and theoretical basis of the model system. The model system will be driven by scenario planning theory and sustainable urban development principles. It will export land-use planning based on selected urban development scenarios and urban planning theories. This paper takes Diao Town in Jinan as an example. Applying GIS spatial analysis and hierarchical analysis, this paper determines the suitability of land use and the weights of different influencing factors, combined with the land-use conflict identification model, for land-use decision-making. Finally, the assessment module verifies whether the planning scheme complies with laws and regulations to achieve an active, reactive response to uncertainty. The paper discusses the ‘uncertainty’ of urban planning and proposes a creative, flexible, and timely planning platform that allows planners and other participants to model and visualize their scenarios.
... Subsequently, LSA has been used in studies associated with a range of different environmental phenomena. For instance, it has been used to map and model urban areas for different particular purposes (Bamrungkhul and Tanaka, 2022;Foroozesh et al., 2022;Hao et al., 2022;Ismaeel and Elsayed, 2022;Saleem et al., 2022) . The driving concept of LSA is to provide decision-makers with the necessary information to evaluate a site suitability for a particular purpose. ...
In recent decades, the adoption of geoinformation technologies has grown more crucial in determining the various characteristics that define the Earth’s environment. GIS tools have evolved significantly to planning for environmental and urban development. This research examined various geoprocessing approaches employed by the ArcGIS MODELBUILDER to decide whether a site is suitable for a slum relocation procedure. Three potential relocation sites for a slum in Cairo were examined using 12 different criteria. Five degrees of suitability have been included for sites assessment. Results were applied according to the score for each site and the final degree of suitability was recorded for decision support of slum relocation. Comparing the proposed sites, Site 3 showed the highest level of suitability for the relocation of slums, scoring 4.246 (84%), followed by sites 1 and 2 with scores of 3.99 (79.8%) and 3.43 (68.6%), after the weighted ratings for each element were determined.
... Zhelonkina et al. (2021) promoted regional conservation planning by identifying key spatial components of ecological conservation and evolutionary processes from the perspective of biodiversity conservation. Saleh and Abeer (2021) and Saleem et al. (2022) used correlation to assess land suitability and provided a theoretical basis for regional urban and rural land planning and forestry planning. ...
In the context of urban expansion and climate change, the world is under pressure from multiple ecological risks. Key ecological protection areas play a pivotal role in preserving ecological stability and promoting development. Due to its unique geographical conditions, the Yellow River basin has been facing huge ecological risk pressure. In the affected area of the Lower Yellow River (AALYR) as an agricultural hub, ecological protection has gradually become a key factor restricting the development of cities and agriculture. Taking AALYR as an example, the landscape ecological risk assessment (LERA) system is established based on three aspects “natural environment—human society—landscape pattern”. We construct a comprehensive cumulative resistance surface based on the risk assessment results as the basis for the future study. Ecological corridors are identified by minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) models to establish and optimize Ecological security pattern (ESP) in the AALYR. We found that the landscape ecological risks (LER) in the study area show a uniform spatial distribution, with a slightly higher distribution in the northeast than the southwest. The ecological risk levels are generally high in AALYR, indicating a more severe risk problem in this area. A total of 56 ecological sources were identified, with a total area of 21176 km². The ecological sensitivity of AALYR was high, and 99 ecological corridors and 59 ecological nodes were extracted. Ecological corridors and nodes were consistently and densely distributed throughout the study area. The network analysis method improves the stability of the network structure after optimization. Based on the key components of the ESP, with the combination of geographical characteristics and local policy planning guidance, we constructed the “One Belt and One Axis, Two Cores and Two Corridors, Four zones” ESP. The study results may offer guidance and suggestions for the construction of ESP and ecological environment protection system in the world’s major river basins, and may also provide information for ecological planning of other similar river basins in the world.
... TOPSIS is a ranking technique by identifying weights for each criterion, normalizes scores for each criterion, and calculates the geometric distance between each alternative and the ideal alternative, which is the best score in each criterion [59]. The chosen alternative should have the shortest geometric distance from the positive ideal solution and the longest geometric distance from the negative ideal solution. ...
Urban agriculture provides a new strategic idea for solving the problem of urban food demand. The main objective of this study is to develop a spatial model for land suitability evaluation of urban agricultural development under different investment demands (urban agriculture 1.0 and 2.0), based on prospect theory and using GIS and TOPSIS analysis techniques. As a whole, we have developed a land suitability evaluation system for urban agricultural development under different investment needs (urban agriculture 1.0 and 2.0). We constructed a land suitability evaluation system for urban agriculture including ecological environment, social demand and investment cost. The results of the land suitability analysis for urban agriculture 1.0 show that the most suitable area is located in Changle. Compared with urban agriculture 1.0, the most suitable area for urban agriculture 2.0 is in Gulou. It is worth noting that Cangshan ranks second in both scenarios and can be used as a potential solution to balance the ecological environment, social demand and investment cost. Determining appropriate land suitability priorities for urban agriculture will facilitate future agricultural investment management and land use planning.
... If the evaluation object is closer to the optimal solution and farther away from the worst solution, it means that the evaluation object is better in all schemes. On the contrary, it means that the evaluation object is relatively poor in all schemes [32][33]. The steps are as follows: Step 1. Data standardization processing: use the above results of dimensionless process; ...
Open dumping sites for solid wastes in Asian developing countries, including Pakistan, have recently received particular attention in terms of environmental pollution problems. In the Lahore District, Mehmood Booti is the only authorized open dumping site developed by city district government which is now unable to fulfill district’s requirement. Therefore the data was collected to propose a new landfill site in Lahore district, Pakistan. These data sets involved the processing of spatial information that was utilized in GIS environment using Boolean Operation as a tool for land suitability analysis. In order to achieve desired results, five input raster layers; including water bodies, roads, important places, existing dumping site and tube well were prepared. After omission of unsuitable areas, the suitability analysis of the residue areas was accomplished.
Ecological processes such as landslide disaster are primarily impacted by both geological and land use activities happening at different spatiotemporal scale. They specifically impact the socioeconomic development in the sub-Himalayan region of Pakistan. Ecological risk assessment and restrictive zonation mapping are therefore prerequisites for mitigation and compensation of landslide losses and risks. The current study has mapped landslide vulnerable Guoien Nullah road located in sub-Himalaya ranges of Pakistan via Landslide Hazard Zonation (LHZ) technique. Landslide active points were identified through field surveys, verified through the readings taken from Global Positioning System and mapped through geographic information system-based software. Seven landslide activating factors, i.e., slope angle, lithology, precipitation, tilt direction, land use/land cover, Normalized Differentiation Vegetation Index and elevation, were evaluated. Analytical hierarchical process (AHP) was used to assign weights to each activating factor. Precipitation, followed by lithology, and slope angle were found most influential in instigating landslide as indicated by AHP. Furthermore, three susceptibility zones were obtained using the weighted overlay method, i.e., high hazard susceptibility zone, moderate hazard susceptibility zone and low hazard susceptibility zone. The study concluded that 69% of the total landslide occurred in the high susceptibility zone which comprised of 36% of the total study area. Ground control points on active landslide sites authenticated the LHZ generated map. These maps help in restrictive zoning in the high hazard zone area that is considered important for engineers, geologists, and land use planners for future area-specific developmental projects. Besides, the current study will aid disaster management authorities, developers, policy makers and researchers in identifying the hazard disposal of the selected area.
The study integrates geographic information system (GIS) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to evaluate land suitability for maize production in Zimbabwe using multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) process. Four thematic maps based on rainfall, temperate, soil type and slope were integrated through overlay technique in a GIS environment to produce maize production suitability map. The resultant maize suitability map was overlaid with constraints map to 'mask out' all non-agricultural land. The final maize suitability map shows that 3.20% of the total land is highly suitable, 16.56% is suitable, 25.34% is moderately suitable, 32.33% is marginally suitable and 9.57% is not suitable for maize production in its current form. The maize suitability classification was validated by regression analyses using measured maize grain yield of 5 key maize varieties representing 5 different maturity groups. Grain yield was regressed against suitability index (SI) of each land class. There were significant positive correlations between maize grain yield and land suitability classes (R 2 = 0.63-0.85). Integrating GIS and AHP with MCE is effective in assessing land suitability for targeting location specific interventions for maize production and the result is a comprehensive suitability map for Zimbabwe, incorporating several critical environmental factors affecting maize adaptation. We recommend the use of this suitability map as a decision support tool in land use planning and policy making.
With the degradation of the environment and the acceleration of urbanization, urban residential land has been undergoing rapid changes and has attracted great attention worldwide. Meanwhile, the quantitative evaluation of the suitability of urban residential land is essential for a better and more powerful understanding of urban residential land planning and improvement. Most urban land suitability studies rely solely on remote sensing data and GIS data to evaluate natural suitability, and few studies have focused on urban land suitability from a socioeconomic perspective. Consequently, this paper integrates remote sensing data (GaoFen-2 satellite image) and social sensing data (Tencent User Density data, Point-of-interest data and OpenStreetMap data) to establish an evaluation framework for analyzing the suitability of urban residential land in the Haidian District, Beijing, China, in which, ecological comfortability, locational livability and overall suitability were evaluated according to five attributes extracted from urban residential land via the factor analysis method. The evaluation results of this case study show that, compared with the suburban area in the northwest, the urban area tends to have lower ecological comfortability and higher locational livability. The overall suitability increases from southeast to northwest, consistent with the spatial distribution of ecological comfortability. This framework can potentially assist with the sustainable development of residential lands and urban land use planning.
Rapid urbanization and consequent haphazard growth of cities result in deterioration of infrastructure facilities, loss of agricultural land, water bodies, open spaces, and many micro-climatic changes. This unprecedented growth in city population put pressure on urban amenities and led to their uneven distribution. The Srinagar and Jammu cities witnessed alarming population growth rates in the last thirty years, thus resulted in various problems like pollution, traffic jam, leap-frog development, uneven provision of urban amenities etc. The present study attempted to find out the urban land suitability for the provision of urban amenities. Land use suitability assessment is a key determinant in any urban and suburban planning and decision-making process. The suitability assessment is carried out through AHP model using a set of criteria involving geo-physical and socioeconomic variables. The variables taken for the study are slope, altitude, land use/land cover and existing amenity status. The unit of study is a municipal ward. For better urban planning and suitable decision making, the study provided the information not only on the existing urban land use pattern and existing amenity status but also on suitability of land for the establishment of urban amenities in future. Keywords: Urbanization, Land use suitability, GIS, Amenity, Urban suitability
To decrease the human influence on natural resources and to recognize a suitable land use, it is vital to carry out scientific land assessments. In the present study, an attempt has been made to delineate the suitable land area for rice cultivation in the Hinglo river basin. The laboratory test data and field work observations have been combined in a geographical information system (GIS) environment. The Different environmental parameters, viz. climatic factors (temperature and precipitation), topographic factors (slope and relief), hydro-geomorphological factors (distance from river, depth of the groundwater and geology), physical properties of soil (soil texture and soil depth) and chemical properties of soil (pH, boron, copper, nitrogen, iron, manganese, phosphorous, potassium, sulphur, zinc etc.) have been used. Each thematic layer has been assigned the rating by analytical hierarchical process method. With the help of weighted overlay method, all thematic layers have been converted into a single layer to prepare the suitability map for rice cultivation in GIS environment. The entire basin has been classified into four suitable classes namely ‘highly suitable’; ‘moderate suitable’, ‘marginally suitable’, and ‘not suitable’ land area. Only 10.88% of the total area is most suitable for rice cultivation. The western and north-middle portion of this watershed region is not suitable for rive cultivation because of the extreme climatic condition, rugged topographic, and lack of proper soil micronutrients. The lower portion of this watershed is most suitable for the rice cultivation due to presence of newer alluvium soil, lower sloping area and abundance of soil micronutrient.
Identification of suitable landfill sites for the sake of public health is a critical issue which has been addressed in the present study. Sites that are far away from settlements minimize public health problems. In the present study, suitable landfill sites with minimum hazards for environment and public health for Islamabad and Rawalpindi city of Pakistan were identified through analytical hierarchy process, which is a useful technique for the identification of suitable landfill sites with minimum influence on environment, ecology, economy and public health. Afterward, least cost path analysis in GIS was chosen for selection of most suitable landfill site. The environmental (groundwater, surface water, vegetation, soil type and environmental sensitive areas), social (roads, slope) and economic (settlements, airports, railways) factors were taken into consideration and were prioritized with pair-wise comparison and weighted sum analysis. Initially twelve sites were found very highly suitable for landfill site. After ground truthing, seven sites were identified as very highly suitable with total area of 1108 ha complied with prerequisite factors for locating landfill site. Latter least cost path analysis led to identification of four most suitable sites for landfill site. The proposed landfill sites have been sited with maximum accuracy in order to help management authorities to select the more suitable areas and so helping the decision makers in solving waste management problems with minimum pollution and public health risks.
One of the critical issues in urban planning is the determination of appropriate locations for urban growth in marginal areas adjacent to large-scale development. This study aims to use a Geographic Information System (GIS) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to choose the best locations of urban growth in Seremban, Malaysia. Various social, economic, environmental, utilities, and physical factors were used to generate a final land suitability map (LSI) including elevation, slope, soil texture, population density, land cover, distance to roads, highways, railways, powerlines, streams, industrial, residential, commercial, and educational areas. The findings of the study reveal that highly suitable areas for urban growth in Seremban reach up to 48% of its total area, while unsuitable and less suitable areas make up 35%. These findings confirm that unsuitable and less suitable areas such as forests and agricultural lands cover approximately half of Seremban, which means that these techniques can help save the ecosystem in marginal areas as well as create future sustainable development.
Pakistan has large reserves of coal but the deposits need to be exploited for provincial and national development. Share of coal in energy sector of Pakistan has increased from 6.5% (2003-04) to 7.6% (2008-09) and but later fell back to 6.7% (2010-11). Considering growing energy needs, this figure should have been more than its predecessor. Balochistan province tops coal production with a 58% share. Pakistan is ranked 7th internationally regarding lignitic coal reserves but, unluckily, Pakistan steel industry has imported from 2.84mt to 4.27mt coal per year between 2006 and 2011. Furthermore, thermal power plants should be installed to use indigenous coal reserves to increase electrical power supply, keeping in view the population increase. Developments for coal resources are necessary due to increasing energy demand in Pakistan, whereas in Pakistan, many coal fields remain underdeveloped. To develop these coalfields, it is necessary to create the technology to use the mixed lignitic, subbituminous and bituminous coal because majority of the reserves are lignitic in Pakistan. The Thar coal deposit of Sindh is lignitic and available in grand quantity. Its development should be started on trial basis initially as vertical shaft mining method. Alternatively, open pit mining could be opted for but ground water may cause trouble in this regard. Coal resources and their discoveries are necessary in order to meet increasing demands. Here some new coalfields are added.
Landslide susceptibility map is very important for engineers, geologist, and land use planner for prevention and mitigation of landslide hazard in the area. This paper presents landslide susceptibility analysis for the part of tehsil Balakot, NW Himalayas, Pakistan. In this study, topographical, geological and remote sensing data were collected and processed using geographic information system (GIS) and ERDAS Imagine software. Nine influential causative factors for landslide occurrence were used for this purpose. The causative factors that influence the landslide occurrence include slope, aspect, curvature, elevation, lithology, land cover, faults, road network, and hydrology. These factors were analyzed for construction of thematic data layers. Numerical weight for each factor was assigned by the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) using Pairwise Comparison Method. The landslide susceptibility indices were derived using weighted overlay method (WOM). As a result, landslide susceptibility map was produced in GIS. The susceptibility map classified the study area into very high, high, moderate, and low susceptible zones. The results of the susceptibility mapping were verified using the landslide occurrence. The verification results revealed 76 % accuracy. The validated results showed good agreement between landslide occurrence and produced susceptibility map of the area. Susceptibility map prepared by weighted overlay method is validated for landslide hazard, mitigations, and land use planning for future construction in the area.
This paper presents a geographic information system–based multi-criteria site selection tool of an olive mill wastewater (OMW) disposal site in Sidi Bouzid Region, Tunisia. The multi-criteria decision framework integrates ten constraints and six factors that relate to environmental and economic concerns, and builds a hierarchy model for OMW disposal site suitability. The methodology is used for preliminary assessment of the most suitable OMW disposal sites by combining fuzzy set theory and analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The fuzzy set theory is used to standardize factors using different fuzzy membership functions while the AHP is used to establish the relative importance of the criteria. The AHP makes pairwise comparisons of relative importance between hierarchy elements grouped by both environmental and economic decision criteria. The OMW disposal site suitability is achieved by applying a weighted linear combination that uses a comparison matrix to aggregate different importance scenarios associated with environmental and economic objectives. Three different scenarios generated by different weights applied to the two objectives. The scenario (a) assigns a weight of 0.75 to the environmental and 0.25 to the economic objective, scenario (b) has equal weights, and scenario (c) features weights of 0.25 and 0.75 for environmental and economic objectives, respectively. The results from this study assign the least suitable OMW disposal site of 2.5 % when environmental and economic objectives are rated equally, while a more suitable OMW disposal site of 1.0 % is generated when the economic objective is rated higher.
With the degeneration of environment and acceleration of urbanization, urban human settlement environment has been in rapid change and attracted great attentions worldwide. Meanwhile the Quantitative evolution on the natural suitability of urban human settlement environment (NSUHSE) is essential for a better and powerful understanding of the urbanization process, such as the direction and pace of the urbanization. This paper uses multisource data, including DEM, meteorological data, vegetation cover data (Normal Differential Vegetation Index, NDVI), DMSP/OLS NTL data etc. to establish the NSUHSE model to quantitatively evaluate the natural suitability of urban human settlement environment in China. The results show that the NSUHSE of China decreases from southeast to northwest in general, urban area of China is concentrated in the area with moderate high NSUHSE which is an area of 415195 km2 or 60.91% of the country's total urban area. Moreover, NSUHSE has significant influence on urban distribution according to the correlation coefficient between NSUHSE and DMSP/OLS NTL data.
Pakistan represents Pre-Cambrian to recent strata with different tectonometallic and sedimentary basins. Pakistan has large reserves of coal but the deposits need to be exploited for provincial and national development. Coal resources and their discoveries are necessary in order to meet increasing demands. Share of coal in energy sector of Pakistan has increased from 6.5% (2003-04) to 7.6% (2008-09) and but later fell back to 6.7% (2010-11). Considering growing energy needs, this figure should have been more than its predecessor. Balochistan province tops coal production with a 58% share. Pakistan is ranked 7 th internationally regarding lignitic coal reserves but, unluckily, Pakistan steel industry has imported from 2.84mt to 4.27mt coal per year between 2006 and 2011. This expenditure can be saved and spent on research and technology development. Furthermore, thermal power plants should be installed to use indigenous coal reserves to increase electrical power supply, keeping in view the population increase. Developments for coal resources are necessary due to increasing energy demand in Pakistan, whereas in Pakistan, many coal fields remain underdeveloped. To develop these coalfields, it is necessary to create the technology to use the mixed lignitic, subbituminous and bituminous coal because majority of the reserves are lignitic in Pakistan. The Thar coal deposit of Sindh is lignitic and available in grand quantity. Its development should be started on trial basis initially as vertical shaft mining method. Alternatively, open pit mining could be opted for but ground water may cause trouble in this regard. Pakistan has mountaineous areas to store rain water and plain areas for irrigation but most of surface water is being wasted as flood. The construction of major dams has mostly been hampered for a variety of reasons. As population increases, construction of smaller dams in all provinces, districts and even tehsil levels proportionally increases. Furthermore, at the mouth of main stream/nalas/rud streaming from mountains, radial tributaries may be constructed in Daman/barren lands to provide water for cultivation. Water resources wasting as flood begs for construction of small dams especially in Kohat and Potwar (upper Indus); Sulaiman (middle Indus) and Kirthar (lower Indus) basins and Balochistan basin of Pakistan which holds its vast plain areas. The main purposes and goals of the present study are to present handy and brief information based on previous and recent wide spread work and also recent discoveries. Furthermore, water resources and their dam constructions are also vital for the development of Pakistan due to increasing population. Due to these reasons, here coal and water resources are briefly being discussed.
Modern planning theories encourage approaches that consider all stakeholders with a variety of dis-course values to avoid political and manipulative decisions. In the last decade, application of quantitative approaches such as multi-criteria decision making techniques in land suitability procedures has increased, which allows handling heterogeneous data. The majority of these applications mainly used decision-making techniques to rank the priority of predefined management options or planning scenar-ios. The presented study, however, shows how spatial decision-making can be used not only to rank the priority of options and performing scenario analysis, but also to provide insight into the spatial extent of the alternatives. This is particularly helpful in situation where political transitions in regard to urban planning policies leave local decision-makers with considerable room for discretion. To achieve this, the study compares the results of two quantitative techniques (analytical hierarchy procedure (AHP) and Fuzzy AHP) in defining the extent of land-use zones at a large scale urban planning scenario. The pre-sented approach also adds a new dimension to the comparative analysis of applying these techniques in urban planning by considering the scale and purpose of the decision-making. The result demonstrates that in the early stage of the planning process, when identifying development options as a focal point is required, simplified methods can be sufficient. In this situation, selecting more sophisticated tech-niques will not necessarily generate different outcomes. However, when planning requires identifying the spatial extent of the preferred development area, considering the intersection area suggested by both methods will be ideal.
Nowadays all potentials and powers of a land is needed to be considered in a systematic way for a true and sustainable development. In developed and developing countries to achieve this purpose, are reducing economical and social pressures, ecosystem risks and also applying tourism development plans in local, national and international level. Urban tourism development is regarded as one of the branches causes’ of urban development. Site selection for tourism resort in coastal area will be a significant issue in the future mission of urban planning. Therefore, Port Dickson district of Malaysia is selected as the study area where the site suitability applied to determine suitable land for tourism resort. This study was done within Analytic Hierarchy Process technique as a multi-criteria evaluation approach by integrating the Geographic Information System. Microsoft Office Excel 2007 was used to compute weights elements after the Weighted Linear Combination analysis, based on basic factors of social, environmental, economical, accessibility and land use. The result offered six suitable sites, which based on the analysis, can be helpful for future urban plan development. Results can be reviewed by local authorities and used in the tourism planning; and future land use planning to make a better decision in Port Dickson district.
Fulfilling present needs while reducing the impact of human activity is a challenge requiring new ideas. As there is shortage of suitable locations, financial resource limitations and limited using of information technology, it is seen an imbalance between request and services around education in Tehran. Educational land use faces with matters such as unsuitable site selection and imbalance distribution of places which makes problems in the way of sustainable urban development. This research focuses on environmental dimension of sustainable urban development and is going to do environmental suitability analysis of educational land use in Tehran by using AHP and GIS. Suitability analysis is a process of systematically identifying or rating potential locations with respect to a particular use. A number of locations for educational land use are founded in Tehran and some factors such as access range, slope,and compatibility are evaluated, then Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is applied to give weight to each indicator and by use of analytical functions of GIS for overlaying the indicators, it will be decided that which location is environmentally suitable for educational land use.
This study used both analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and geographic information systems (GIS) to make a land-use suitability analysis for the village of Dümrek, NW Turkey. Primarily, alternative land uses for agriculture, meadow–pasture and forest were determined along with criteria for these alternatives and a hierarchical structure was produced and used to determine the weights of the criteria. Spatial data were identified by means of GIS and calculations were made using the suitability values specified and weights obtained from AHP. Suitability maps were then produced for the above land use alternatives. Subsequently, a synthesized suitability map was formed from these maps. According to the weights specified by AHP, the order of land use preferences among the alternatives for rural development of Dümrek was agriculture, forest and meadow. The synthesized suitability map showed that the areas allocated for forest and agriculture were close to the present ratios of use; however, meadow land, which does not exist at present, should be allocated as a land use to constitute 12.5% of the study area. Achieving sustainability in land use is possible by planners and administrators considering results obtained from land suitability mapping studies at the stage of allocating land uses. The method applied in this research is considered useful when taking policy decisions covering the evaluation of rural land use, particularly for subunits of the state administration.
Land use potentialities and local agro-ecologies limits are key principles of sustainable land management. Geographical Information System (GIS) is an efficient tool for collecting, storing, retrieving transforming and displaying spatial data and also non-spatial data from the real world for a particular set of objectives. In this study agroinformatics and geo-spatial technologies are combined to design a model for evaluating the cotton crop land suitability. Soil, ground water availability, irrigation methods, climate, land use, cropping patterns and agro-ecological zoning are used in a model with GIS framework as a Spatial Decision Support System. Multi-criteria decision-making methodology is employed in a systematic manner. It starts with the selection of
significant factors and goes on with normalization, ranking, weight extraction and implementation of weighted overlays function for graded suitable areas identification for cotton crop cultivation in the Sindh province of Pakistan. The criteria are normalized on a same scale viz. suitable, less suitable and not suitable land for cotton crop cultivation. The output of model is validated through practicing cropping pattern in the region and
associated agriculture statistics. We found a highly significant correlation (r = 0.92) between multi-criteria cotton crop suitability and practicing crop patterns in the study area. This model can be extended for local scale with variety of crop types and in other regions of the world.
This study compares land suitability index (LSI) maps created using a geographic information system (GIS) with frequency ratio (FR), analytical hierarchy process (AHP), logistic regression (LR), and artificial neural network (ANN) approaches to forecasting urban land-use changes. Various social, political, topographic, and geographic factors were used as predictors of land-use change, including elevation, slope, aspect, distance from roads and urban areas, road ratio, land use, environmental score, and legal restrictions. Then, LSI maps were created using FR, AHP, LR, and ANN approaches, and significance and correlation were examined among the models using relative operating characteristic (ROC), overall accuracy, and kappa analyses. The ROC analyses gave results of 0.940, 0.937, 0.922, and 0.891 for the LR, FR, AHP, and ANN LSI maps, respectively. The highest correlation was found between the LR and AHP LSI maps (0.816911), and the lowest correlation was between the ANN and FR LSI maps (0.759701). The ANN approach produced the highest overall accuracy at 92.3%, followed by 91.74% for FR, 89.12% for AHP, and 88.93% for LR. In the kappa analysis, the highest Kˆ statistic was 45.38% for FR, followed by 40.84% for ANN, 30 representing the city area, the ANN method had a relatively high value of 71.71%, and the FR, LR, and AHP methods had similar accuracies of 57.68, 55.05, and 54.31%, respectively. These results indicate that the FR, AHP, LR, and ANN approaches produced similar LSI maps for Korea.
Optimal locations for public facilities such as public parks are significant issues in the urban planning of Larkana city. Therefore, specifically, Larkana city of Pakistan is selected as the study area where the land suitability model was applied to determine suitable land for public parks. This study was carried out within the framework of an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) as a multi-criteria evaluation approach by integrating it with the Geographic Information System (GIS). Decision support system software called Expert choice 11.5 was used to calculate the weights based on three alternative scenarios. Computed composite weights were inserted into the spatial analysis function of GIS and produced three scenarios of suitability maps, i.e.: (a) land availability, (b) land value and (c) population density. Hence, based on the analysis and findings made in this research, finding suitable locations using the land suitability model for future park development is highly helpful. Results can be useful in the planning of public facilities and future land use planning in Larkana city.
The main objective of this study was to develop a Geographic Information Systems-based model for land suitability assessment for guava, olive and date palm in the North-western coast of Egypt. Soil, climatic and landscape database as well as satellite image have been integrated through Geographic Information Systems (GIS). A Landsat ETM+ image dated 2001, was classified using maximum likelihood classifier to produce land use/land cover map. Physical and chemical analyses of 57 soil profiles were interpolated to produce continuous land characteristic maps that are relevant to the requirement of the considered crops. These maps with climate and land cover map were integrated using GIS to produce land suitability maps for guava, olive and date palm. Two types of land suitability maps were produced in this study namely: Continuous land suitability maps and conventional land suitability classified maps. For each of them six land suitability maps were produced for the three crops in which three are for actual land suitability and the other three for potential land suitability. It was found that the suitability was higher for date palm followed by olive and the lowest suitability was assigned for guava.
Rise in environmental pollution is a critical problem faced by mankind today. Many interventions have been made to reduce the carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases. Interventions, such as the introduction of electric cars, and innovative techniques to harness energy from renewable sources have been implemented. Pakistan is also very focused on exploiting its renewable energy sources and many sources have been identified. Wind energy is considered to have a promising potential and numerous sites have been identified for installation of wind farms. In this paper, we have collected data for the sites with the capacity factor (key determinant of value of power plant) of 25% or above for 600 kW wind turbine and applied Multi-Criteria Decision Method to find the most suitable to least suitable site for the installation of wind farm with respect to different factors/criteria. Analytic Hierarchy Process is used to evaluate four potential sites based on the criteria of wind speed (m/s), wind power density (W/m²), distance from grid station (km), capacity factor, transport cost and population density. Results show that the preference of site largely depends on the average annual wind speed and wind power density. Our study is helpful for government as they verify the findings of Pakistan Meteorological Department but with different approach.
The main goal of this research was to establish a spatial model for identification of suitable land for cotton in Punjab, Pakistan through evaluation of multidisciplinary variables by applying geographic information system (GIS) and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) approach. In this model, rivers were used as constraint and seven factors were temperature, soil physical and chemical properties, soil pH, aridity classes, agro-ecological zones, and river command area. On the basis of these parameters suitability maps were generated. By pair-wise comparison matrix (PWCM) of AHP, weights were extracted by means of principal Eigen vector by Saaty.s method, with accepted consistency ratio of 0.09. Multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) employing weighted linear combination aggregates all suitability maps to generate final suitability map. It was found that more potential sites exist along with existing cotton practiced area. The result provided important information for farmers to establish linkage between policy decisions and regulatory actions and to improve agricultural land management.
The effects of land use and land-use changes on river nutrient concentrations are not well understood, especially in the watersheds of developing countries that have a mixed land use of rice paddy fields and developing urban surfaces. Here, we present a three-year study of a paddy agricultural–urban area gradient watershed in southeast China. The annual anthropogenic nitrogen (N) input from the agricultural region to the urban region was high, yet the results showed that the monthly nutrient concentrations in the river were low in the rainy seasons. The nutrient concentrations decreased continuously as the river water passed through the traditional agriculture region (TAR; paddy rice and wheat rotation) and increased substantially in the city region (CR). The traditional agricultural reference region exported most of the nutrient loads at high flows (> 1 mm d− 1), the intensified agricultural region (IAR, aquaculture and poultry farming) exported most of the nutrient loads at moderate flows (between 0.5 and 1 mm d− 1), and the CR reference area exported most of the nutrient loads under low to moderate flows. We developed a statistical model to link variations in the nutrient concentrations to the proportion of land-use types and rainfall. The statistical results showed that impervious surfaces, which we interpret as a proxy for urban activities including sewage disposal, were the most important drivers of nutrient concentrations, whereas water surfaces accounted for a substantial proportion of the nutrient sinks. Therefore, to efficiently reduce water pollution, sewage from urban areas must be addressed as a priority, although wetland restoration could also achieve substantial pollutant removal.
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.
Wheat is considered the most important crop in Egypt; however, not all of the land in Egypt is equally suitable for growing wheat. The main objective of this study was to develop a spatial model for land suitability assessment for wheat crop integrated with geographic information system (GIS) techniques. Organic matter, N, P, K, Zn, drainage, texture, depth, topography, surface stoniness, hard pan, hydraulic conductivity, water holding capacity, salinity, ESP, CaCO3 and pH were recognized as factors affecting land suitability for wheat crop in the study area. Three thematic indicators were used in assessing land suitability, soil fertility, chemical and physical properties quality indices. The results of the proposed model were compared with the Square root and Storie methods. The results from the proposed model showed that most of the units fall within the highly suitable class and the moderately suitable class which together represent 71.44% of the total area. About 29% of the study area was marginally suitable and unsuitable for wheat crop and those areas correspond to the adverse physical and chemical properties of the soil. The comparison of the results of the three approaches used showed that the present model has a high level of agreement with the Square root method, whereas all land units have the same classes of suitability with the exception of one unit. The present model allows obtaining results that seems to be corresponded with the current conditions in the area.
This study was carried out to assess the land suitability for rainfed faba bean (Vicia faba L.) cultivation in Gonbad-Kavous region (Golestan province, north of Iran) using geographic information system (GIS) and analytical hierarchy process (AHP), the most common methods for evaluation of land use suitability. Several parameters were considered in this study, including the annual average, minimum and maximum temperatures, annual precipitation, slope, elevation, and some soil properties such as organic matter, pH, EC, texture, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, iron, and zinc. The environmental parameters and the classification system used in the this work are inspired by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) method dedicated to land suitability. In determining the weights of parameters, expert opinions were consulted and the final land suitability map was generated in five classes. As evidenced by the results, it was estimated that 23.48% of the study area (48,354.5 ha) is highly suitable for faba bean cropping, while 25.38% (52,237.37 ha) is moderately suitable and 25.03% (51,522.85 ha) is marginally suitable. In addition, our results indicated that just 26.11% of total agricultural lands are non-suitable for crop production. The currently non-suitable (49,778.80 ha) and permanently non-suitable (3997.09 ha) classes are located in the north and northwest parts of Gonbad-Kavous township. Soil salinity, low organic matter, low precipitation, high Ca content, and deficiency of P and Fe contents were found to be key limiting factors in this area.
Physiographic components play a fundamental role in agriculture in hilly zone. Slope, soil depth, erosion, moisture, water holding capacities, texture and availability of nutrients have affect on agricultural production. Land suitability analysis can help to formulate the strategies for improvement in agricultural productivity. GIS based multi-criterion decision making approach using IRS P6 LISS-IV dataset was used to analyze land suitability for agriculture in hilly zone. The experts’ opinions and correlation analyses were used to decide the ranks of influencing criterion whereas pairwise comparison matrix in ‘Comparison for Super Decision Software’ used to determine the weights. The scores for sub-parameters showing internal variations within the criteria assigned based on field work and reported norms in published literature. About 17% (7326 ha) of reviewed area are classified in the class ‘highly suitable’, 29% (12,372 ha) in ‘moderately suitable’, 16% (6514 ha) in ‘marginally suitable’ and 38% (15,798 ha) in ‘not suitable’ for agriculture. The land suitability classes i.e. ‘highly suitable’ and ‘not suitable’ in suitability map are precisely estimated than the classes ‘moderately suitable’ and ‘marginally suitable’ both in producer’s and user’s point of view. The methodology, techniques and findings of the study can be useful to assess the land suitability for agriculture in hilly zones.
There has been enormous land use change taking place in China since 1978 followed by impacts on the environmental, social and economical conduct of the society. Benchmark land price as the key indicator to evaluate the performance of urban land use provides guidelines for land use rights selling and transferring in order to overcome lack of market data and experiences in land transaction. The purpose of this study is to develop a sustainability analysis of urban residential development mainly considering the impacts of benchmark land price and the variations of urban land use with a case study of Nanjing city in JiangSu province of China. The integration of empirical models, GIS technology and 3D data visualization were proposed to be an integrated tool that is able to examine the spatial distribution of land price differences and provide important conceptual insights into the spatial effects within urban land markets. Furthermore, the simulation results obtained in empirical models were combined with land use variations to provide important sustainable insights into the developing trend of benchmark land price in recent years and further explain for the Decision Maker and urban planners whether urban areas develop sustainably or not.
Urban construction land suitability evaluation (UCLSE) is a complex system engineering and the basis for rational use of the limited urban land resources in China. It has an important practical value on urban construction land use planning and management from the angle of methodology. As a widely used technique, traditional multi-criteria evaluation based on GIS (MCE-GIS), is not suitable for UCLSE. This study develops an improved MCE-GIS method which could be more suitable for UCLSE based on urban complex ecological system theory and the summary of the shortcomings of traditional MCE-GIS. The improvements include three aspects: a composite evaluation index system rather than natural indexes alone, an index weight calculated by using fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method rather than the common AHP method, and the integrated overlay rule, which includes selecting the minimum value, weighted linear combination (WLC) and simple summation. The main advantage of this improved technique is that it can make UCLSE more comprehensive, more operational and more reasonable. It can provide a scientific basis for decision making in the planning and management of urban construction land use. The improved MCE-GIS system has been adopted in the New Hefei City, Anhui Province, China. Based on the results of UCLSE in New Hefei, three functional areas including construction-appropriate areas, construction-restricted areas and construction-forbidden areas could be worked out, in which 36.90% of the total study area could be developed as urban construction land and the remaining 63.10% should be protected as reserves land or as ecological land. Furthermore, the results can provide scientific decision support for spatial planning and eco-environment protection in New Hefei.
Due to constant decrease in farmlands, it is important to identify the best lands useful for sustainable agriculture (productive and profitable agriculture that protects the environment and that is socially equitable). This requirement has resulted in the development of land suitability maps for agriculture by combining several factors of various natures and of differing importance. The integration of MultiCriteria Decision Analysis approaches (MCDA) in a Geographical Information System (GIS) provides a powerful spatial decision support system which offers the opportunity to efficiently produce these land suitability maps. Indeed, GIS is a powerful tool for analyzing spatial data and establishing a process for decision support. Because of their spatial aggregation functions, MCDA methods can facilitate decision making in situations where several solutions are available, various criteria have to be taken into account and decision-makers are in conflict (Dias et al., 2002). The parameters and the classification system used in this work are inspired from the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) approach dedicated to a sustainable agriculture. A spatial decision support system has been developed for establishing the land suitability map for agriculture. It incorporates the multicriteria analysis method ELECTRE Tri (ELimitation Et Choix Traduisant la REalité) in a GIS (ArcGIS) within the GIS program package environment. This approach has been tested on the area of Mleta in Algeria. A land suitability map for durum wheat has been produced. Through the obtained results, it appears that ELECTRE Tri method, integrated into ArcGIS 9.2 of ESRI, is better suited to the problem of land suitability for agriculture. The time saving during the development of the land suitability map for the agriculture of the durum wheat was considerable. The coherence of the obtained maps confirms the system effectiveness.
Analysis and evaluation of urban residential land suitability plays an important role in the overall plan of urban land and coordination subsystem, and has important significance in improving the quality of urban inhabited environment. This paper discussed how to analyze and evaluate the suitability of urban residential land qualitatively and efficiently, taking Changchun, China as study area by GIS technology. The study began with the establishment of evaluation index system which consisted of two steps: Index Selection and Indexes Weight Determination which applied the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. Then analysis and evaluation was carried out on the spatial distribution map of residential suitability obtained by raster calculation in ArcGIS 9.2. The application of geometric road network is a great improvement compared with the previous methods which was based on straight line distance, thus making the spatial distribution map more reasonable. The analysis result indicates that the closer to the center of Changchun, the higher and the greater fluctuation of residential suitability presented. And the present situation evaluation result not only shows that the residential land distribution of Changchun basically corresponds with the analysis result talked above, but also proves that there is a significant negative correlation between the residential land suitability and the distance from residential areas to the city center by correlation analysis.
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.
Suitability evaluation for land is a complex task due to tensions between the need to develop residential and industrial areas and the wish to preserve high biodiversity and heterogeneous landscapes. We proposed an integrated method for land suitability evaluation (LSE) based on geographic information systems (GIS) under uncertainty. The method of grey relational analysis (GRA) was incorporated into analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to address the uncertainty during the process of evaluation. The systematic evaluation approach was tested by using urban expansion land in Changsha City as a case study. Based on the land-environmental information system database, the evaluation indicator system was established, which consisted of three subsystems criteria (biological and water resources, soil resource, and society and economy) and eight factors. Results show that the sum of highly suitable, moderately suitable, and marginally suitable land covers an area of 6,561.27 km(2), 55.48% of the total land area in Changsha City. However, 44.52% of the total area (approximately 5,265.45 km(2)) is currently not suitable land or permanently not suitable land, which illustrates that most areas in Changsha City are suitable for urban development. These outcomes can be used as a basis for policy makers, urban and regional planners, and researchers to deal with the development of cities and their surroundings in regions of highly ecological and environmental sensitivity.
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.
Pakistan especially in Province Punjab has a narrow forest resource. More than 90% of the fuel wood and almost 50% of timber requirements are being met from trees being growing on the private farm lands, based on agroforestry as compared with the state forests. It is obvious that trees have to be grown in conjunction with agricultural crops on private farm lands. The main objectives of the study pertain to prepare the land suitability classification in Punjab especially the District of Rahim Yar Khan along with the identification of the agroecological zones of province. The area was surveyed according to its total extent, component soils series and their proportion, spotting characteristics of each soil series, their major limitations/hazards for tree plantation and suitability for specific tree species were identified and tree species were recommended according to soil characteristic, then land suitability map of choice of trees species was prepared by using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software and marked the area according to the soil types and species. This classification would help the agroforester and all those interested in planting on their farm lands in matching suitable species of trees for different soils in the Punjab. The resources available to the agroforester would be used properly and diligently without wastage of the time and money. It would help him in identifying the land management alternatives and he shall evaluate the land uses for a meaningful assessment.
This is the first part of an introduction to multicriteria decision making using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and
its generalization, the Analytic Network Process (ANP). The discussion involves individual and group decisions both with the
independence of the criteria from the alternatives as in the AHP and also with dependence and feedback in the entire decision
structure as in the ANP. This part explains the Analytic Hierarchy Process, with examples, and presents in some detail the
mathematical foundations. An exposition of the Analytic Network Process and its applications will appear in later issues of
this journal.
A critical shortcoming of methods that are reliant upon the judgment of experts to determine site suitability is noted. The article introduces a new method, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) with which error in judging the relative importance of factors in site suitability analysis can be both detected and corrected. The proposed approach is illustrated with an example to show how the AHP frames the site evaluation problem and can aid in decision making involving multiple criteria, factor diversity, and conditions of uncertainty. The article concludes by suggesting the potential application of the AHP in public choice decisions involving complex, controversial, and conflictual site selection processes.
Urban systems emerge as distinct entities from the complex interactions among social, economic and cultural attributes, and information, energy and material stocks and flows that operate on different temporal and spatial scales. Such complexity poses a challenge to identify the causes of urban environmental problems and how to address them without causing greater deterioration. Planning has traditionally focused on regulating the location and intensity of urban activities to avoid environmental degradation, often based on assumptions that are rarely revisited and producing ambiguous effects. The key intellectual challenge for urban policy-makers is a fuller understanding of the complexity of urban systems and their environment. We address this challenge by developing an assessment framework with two main components: (1) a simple agent-based model of a hypothetical urbanizing area that integrates data on spatial economic and policy decisions, energy and fuel use, air pollution emissions and assimilation, to test how residential and policy decisions affect urban form, consumption and pollution; (2) an information index to define the degree of order and sustainability of the hypothetical urban system in the different scenarios, to determine whether specific policy and individual decisions contribute to the sustainability of the entire urban system or to its collapse.
Various methods of consensus of preference rankings of individuals are described in applying group decision making. Here, we discuss two different approaches, one deterministic and the other stochastic. The first is applicable to situations where the group is small, and the second applies to opinions of the population at large where one cannot deal with people on an individual basis. The dividing line between these two approaches is not made in stone and it is the choice of the decision maker to select one approach or the other. How does one synthesize the judgments of a group? In these approaches we address the issues of obtaining priority weights for a group of individuals. Importance ranking of the judges is considered in the deterministic case.
Site suitability analysis for urban development: a review
- S K Misra
- S Sharma
- SK Misra
Application of an integrated multi-criteria decision making AHP-TOPSIS methodology for ETL software selection
- M Hanine
- O Boutkhoum
- A Tikniouine
- T Agouti
Land suitability evaluation for paddy cultivation using GIS for Sweta Nadi Basin
- S Priyadharshini
- R Jegankumar
- S Aruchamy