Assessing Land Capability for Urban Landuse by the Weighted Liner Composition (WLC) in GIS (Case Study: Zardrud Watersheds of Khouzestan Province)

Bachground and Since the environment has a limited ecological potential for human uses, the ecological potential assessment provides a well suited bed for environmental planning. The main objective of this paper is to determine proper criteria by applying multicriteria decision-making Methods for land capability assessment to establish new cities.
In this research, multicriteria assessment approach and Weighted Liner Composition(WLC) are utilized in ecological potential assessment of Zardrud basin of Khouzestan for urban development by using geographic information system (GIS) based on 13 criteria which includes:slope, evaluation, aspect , rainfall, average temperature, land type, soil, land use, distance to river, distance to industries, distance to road, earthquake bearing and fault zones. Land capability map is developed in which it shows prioritized and proper areas for urban development in the aforemeotioned range.
Findings: Most importants factors on urban development were earthquake bearing, land use and soil and that R11, R4 nappies have better choices.
Discussion and The results obtained from this study can be used as a pattern for urban planning that indicates well suited urban location with respect to environmental considerations