The integrated model of GIS and AHP-VIKOR for evaluating sustainable land-use management

Abstract

Evaluation of sustainable land-use management (ESLM) is basically a multi-criteria decision analysis  (MCDA)  because it always has to take into considerations several different issues from  socioeconomic to ecological and environmental ones. In this study a model is developed to handle MCDA problems by integrating GIS and AHP - VIKOR (The name VIKOR appeared in 1990 from Serbian: VIseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje, that means: Multicriteria Optimization and Compromise Solution). The model consists of three steps: (i) Identify sustainability indicators using the FAO approach (1993b, 2007); (ii) Calculate the weights of each sustainability indicators using AHP; (iii) thematic layers connected to each sustainability indicator are built in GIS then overlaid to calculate suitability index (Si) for each region using VIKOR, finally rank Si to determine regions suitable for each land use purpose. Comparing of the results of this model (GIS and AHP-VIKOR) and the results of GIS and AHP-TOPSIS, GIS and AHP -WAM (calculate Si for each region by Weighted Average Method) under the same conditions of  Duc Trong district - Lam Dong province. The similarities and differences of three models are also discussed, and then evaluated each model.