GIS-based hierarchical fuzzy multicriteria decision-making method for urban planning

We present a new GIS-based fuzzy hierarchical MCDA for multiple assessments of land parcels in urban planning. In our model the criteria are decomposed in a hierarchical structure in which the leaf nodes are modelled with trapezoidal and triangular fuzzy sets on the universe of a specific characteristic of the parcel. The fuzzy set of a criterion is constructed as intersection of the fuzzy sets of the subcriteria in next hierarchical level that compose it. This approach has the advantage of managing complex evaluations of land parcels and facilitating the attribution of the degrees with which land parcels meet criteria. The proposed model has been experimented on a study area constituted by the municipality of Pozzuoli (Italy) in which the land parcels are the microzones in which the municipality is divided; we apply our method to assess which microzones are most suitable to increase the accommodation services of public primary school near them. Comparison of the results with expert assessments show that out method turns out to be reliable and consistent with the expert's evaluations.