Determine the most important criteria and indicators that influence land degradation and desertification

Lans degradation and desertification are serious and complex problems that have become worldwide crisis in the world and use appraisal systems to study the degradation and adopt a suitable strategy to deal with this phenomenon, are necessary and important. The first step in the study of land degradation and desertification is determining criteria and indicators that effecting these process. Therefore, in this study we examine the importance and priority of a significant number of criteria and indices that influence land degradation and desertification. In this research, we choose 8 criteria and 49 indicators based on questionnaires and expert panel and evaluate them based on eight metrics. We weighted suitable criteria for evaluation indicators with the help of Shannon entropy method, and then by using the TOPSIS method (one of Multiple Attribute Decision Making Methods) we determined the most effective indicators on land degradation and desertification for manage and deal with this phenomenon. The results show that among the evaluation criteria and indices that should be considered for a benchmark or index, a scale, has the highest weight and importance, and being sensitive to change, has the minimum weight and importance. The results of the prioritization and ranking criteria and indicators based on TOPSIS model indicates that the severity of exploitation of water resources in the factor of water with the 0.79 efficiency, has the most effect and the use of facilities and personal management in the management factor with the 0.11 efficiency has less effect in land degradation and desertification.