Use of the Analytic Hierarchy Process Technique for Land-use Analysis

The AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) is a useful tool in decision making method for land-use planning. Hillside development often contains environmental constraints because of hilly topography. Planners and decision makers have a limited opportunity to implement innovative approaches in land-use planning decision making process. This paper discusses on a possible MCDA (Multi Criteria Decision Analysis) method of land suitability analysis for sustainable hillside development. A hierarchical structure model is developed for the land suitability analysis. Land-use planners can get benefit from MCDA techniques for hillside development projects and various kinds of land-use planning problems. Criteria are prioritized by the experts and a number of sub-criteria are set in order to select the best alternatives for sustainable hillside development by using AHP method. Various techniques and modules are available that can check uncertainty of a computed final decision by experts. CR (Consistency Ratio) method is used to examine the uncertainty in decision obtained by the experts. If CR is more than required CR standards that it can revise weights with minor changes in criteria judgements to check uncertainty in decision-making of land suitability analysis. The AHP steps can be used by using the EC (Expert Choice) decision support software automatically or manually. This paper intends to introduce MCDA as a policy design tool for planners and decision makers like an AHP application in land-use planning.