Determination of suitable settlement areas using GIS: Case study of Pshdar, Iraq

This study deals with the site suitability settlement from the pshdar district by using Geographical Information Systems. The goal of this thesis is to determine the suitable settlement areas for urban development by using Geographical Information Systems and Multi Criteria Decision Making technique using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), it is a method to avoid subjectivity to the selection of rank and weight values of the different Criteria. Thus, the importance of this study is that it supports the system to assigning land suitable assessment for a new residential area. In this study, some physical factors as (geology, slope, topography, land use/cover, Stream, road, aspect) have been used, the factors and classes within each Criteria can assign weight and rank values respectively. This study also shows a scientific way to use the land for different scopes. For example, if the land of agriculture is used for residential or another scope, it will be impossible because it is damaged in the future. The method used in this thesis has proved to give a good result for selecting different levels of the site suitable for new residential area. The classification result has demonstrated that the lowest suitability area of the region equals to 1549.32 m2, low suitability area equals to 120072.42 m2, moderate suitability area equals to 324582.87 m2, high suitability area equals to 15778291.37 m2 and the highest suitability area equals to 1885524.41 m2.