Suitable site selection for urban green space development using geographic information system and remote sensing based on multi criterion analysis

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The study was conducted with the objective of selecting suitable site for urban green space development of Arba Minch town in Ethiopia using geographic information system and remote sensing based multi criterion analysis. METHODS: To produce suitable site, four parameters were considered, these are slope, land use land cover, distance to the main river and distance to road. Supervised classification followed by reclassification were done to classify suitable land use land cover for urban green space, digital elevation model data were used to generate slope suitability and buffering with different distance were used to produce suitable site using distance to the road and distance to the main river parameters’. Although a variety of techniques exist for the development of weight, one of the most promising techniques was the Pairwise Comparison Matrix in the context of a decision making process known as the Analytical Hierarchy Process and ratings were provided on a nine-point continuous scale, which ranges from 1 to 9. FINDINGS: So, on the bases of the ranks given by the experts the highest value was calculated for river which was 51.28%. The result shows that high suitability accounts 36.3 % of the total area, 45.5 % of the area is moderately suitable and the remaining 18.5 % of the town is not suitable for urban green space. CONCLUSION: The most important parameters’ to predict the location of urban green space in the study area were distance to the main river followed by distance to the road as the experts’ rate it. Although, slope and land use land cover parameters’ are very important, they do not seem to have noticeable effect on urban green space development as of the experts’ response.