Assessment and Prioritization of Urban Development Sustainability Using a Hybrid Approach: Group Fuzzy BWM and GIS

Identifying and measuring sustainability through social, economic and environmental aspects is a priority in strategic decisions of policy makers. Also consideration of local context in urban sustainability assessment is important for the developing countries because of the varying stakeholder needs and priorities. The present study aimed to develop a practical framework consisting of GIS and MCDM using fuzzy logic to measure the sustainability of Karaj, a city in the west of Tehran, Iran. First, seven criteria and 24 sub-criteria of urban sustainability were identified based on literature review, interviews with experts, and Delphi technique. Then, the criteria were weighted and prioritized using Group fuzzy BWM. Fuzzy logic and Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) method in GIS were used to determine the sustainability potential of Karaj. Based on the results, the socioeconomic and employment criteria weighting 0.383 and 0.182 were the most important, and biological criteria and distance from the military lands with weight of 0.0383, 0.00337 were respectively the least important in the GF-BWM method. In terms of spatial distribution, both methods estimated that about 30% of the entire study area was highly sustainable. The integrated application of multi-criteria decision-making method and GIS provided a more flexible and cost-effective tool for decision making in urban planning and managemen.