Urban Land Suitability Evaluation Using of Fuzzy AHP Method

Urban land suitability evaluation (ULSE) is necessary to allocate proper land uses to available sites. GIS and MCDM based methods have considerable results to facilitate ULSE. Furthermore, ULSE asks participation of various experts with different point of view and interest, as a group decision making problem. In this research, a GIS and Fuzzy-MCDM integrated method is used to evaluate urban land suitability and allocate proper land use to predefined urban sites, at a group decision making approach. Main steps of ULSE include: selection of evaluation factors, determining of factors’ weights, producing of factor maps in GIS, aggregating of factor maps and finally calculating of land suitability index for each urban site, have been presented and discussed. The method is tested in a case study area at 6th municipality region of Esfahan city. Evaluation factors for four urban land uses and related weights are modeled and used to define priority for each urban site to allocate to specific land uses, using of Fuzzy AHP method. The results indicate usefulness of method for ULSE.