GIS Based Analysis for Developing Residential Land Suitability

The process of urbanization is a universal phenomenon taking place all over the world. All countries are prone to this phenomenon mainly determined by the increase in population growth, economy and infrastructure initiatives. Bangladesh is one of the world's most densely populated countries and it has faced rapid population growth throughout the last century. Unplanned urbanization leads to land-use change and creates not only noisy and unhealthy environment but also inadequate infrastructure facilities and poor living condition. This study is an attempt to work on residential land use suitability assessment through the application of Geographic Information System (GIS) and Multi-criteria Decision Analysis. In the study, the development of the main criterion and sub-criterion factors selected for suitability analysis were used in the Saaty's pairwise comparison of Analytic Hierarchy Process technique (AHP) for getting the weight for each of the criteria. To reflect the preferences towards a certain factor, definite to very strong preferences was given to that factor in their pair wise comparison. The consistency was checked to verify the reliability of the results of the study. Each of the input themes was assigned a weight influence based on its importance, then multiplying the given weights by each of the factor maps in the form of a Weighting Overlay process. The system integrates two major tools (GIS and AHP) in a manner that reach the correct solution to assist the decision maker in determining appropriate values for the suitability criteria. This method would help planners and policy makers in formulating urban growth policies and strategies of the city.