Fuzzy Modeling of Urban Land Use Development for Land Suitability Ranking by Using OWA- AHP Decision Making Method (Case Study: The Water Catchment of Shur in Qazvin Province)

Ecological Planning with Multicriteria decision making is a process that evaluates the alternative land uses in relation to its environmental and socioeconomic surroundings, with the purpose of managing natural resources, preserving the ecosystems and solve or diminish possible environmental conflicts. The land suitability analysis problem involves classification of the units of observations according to their suitability for a particular activity. Suitability analysis has been referred to as one of the most useful tools provided by GIS. Since the urban development has enormous environmental impacts on peri-urban regions, it is necessary to evaluate urban land use. The water catchment of Shur in Qazvin province has difficulties in association with urban development trend. This research was done in the framework of Iran ecological model and fuzzy multicriteria decision making models (namely, OWA and AHP in GIS and Idrisi environments) with the aim choosing the suitable locations for urban development land use in the study region. Analysis process and data classifications for achieving environmental units at study area was obtained by overlaying prepared maps and the recognition was performed with GIS. The results indicate that evaluation by OWA scenarios have different results. OWA approach provided a mechanism for guiding the decision maker/analysis through the multicriteria combination procedures. Consequently, the approach facilitates a better understanding of the alternative land-use suitability patterns.