International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—Nowadays there are formidable challenges facing decision makers in order to rangeland management. Allocation of limited rangelands among the various stakeholders, lack of sufficient environmental policies for sustainable use of rangelands as well as degradation of these areas have caused increasing concern among managers and revealed the importance of Land suitability analysis. As regards a broad range of criteria is required for performing effective land suitability selecting of appropriate method to handle such wide heterogeneous criteria. Spatial Analytical Hierarchy Process method as a commonly use method of compensatory model is a suitable tool for this purpose. The main aim of this paper is to examine a relatively new method of multi criteria evaluation by using spatial analytical hierarchy method for determining the most suitable areas for rangelands in Taleghan basin. Results indicate that the spatial analytical hierarchy process is a powerful support system resolving different uses of land suitability issues in the region.

Index Terms—Spatial analytical hierarchy process; landsuitability evaluation; rangeland use; Taleghan Basin; Multiple criteria evaluation.

¹Faculty of Biological Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iransudabe. jafari@gmail.com
^2*Department of Environment and Energy, Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran; Corresponding author: narges_zaredar@yahoo.com, Tel/Fax: 098-2166601826

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Cite: Sudabe Jafari and Narges Zaredar, "Land Suitability Analysis using Multi Attribute Decision Making Approach," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 1, no. 5, pp. 441-445, 2010.