Analysis of land suitability for locating rural service centers using PROMETHEE II and pair-wise comparison methods in GIS environment; Case Study: Soltanieh County, Abhar City

One of the most important issues in spatial and regional planning is identification of suitable regions for locating facilities and services. There are different models and methods in this area and rapid expansion of geospatial science especially geographical information system (GIS) has made the modeling and the analysis of spatial data possible. The aim of this study is the analysis of land suitability to locate rural service centers using social, economic and environmental factors in Soltanieh County. To this end, two methods of multi criteria decision making (MCDM) i.e. PROMETHEE II and pair-wise comparison were used in geographical information systems environment. The result of this research is reported on a grading scale from one to five which varies from the least to the most suitable areas respectively. Finally some investigstions also showed that the most suitable areas agree well with the selected criteria.