Land Suitability Analysis Using Geographic Information System (GIS)for Hillside Development: A case study of Penang Island

Rapid development geared towards hillsides has been a challenging issue for developing Asian countries such as Malaysia due to limited flat land. It creates various urban environmental problems, namely landslide susceptibility, soil and coastal erosion and deforestation. Therefore, it is very crucial that their location should be carefully chosen. The objectives of this study are to design a conceptual framework of understanding land evaluation using land suitability multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) approach considering accessibility, to develop GIS-based land suitability analysis model and to formulate effective
strategies for locating optimal sites to the hillside development against environmental threats and economic
pull factor. In this study, the Penang Island is selected for land suitability analysis using Geographic Information System (GIS). MCDA is the basic base for land suitability analysis in the rational land-use planning using GIS. In order to determine suitable site, the important factors/criterions are incorporated i.e. accessibility and topography, land cover, and economic. In this paper, pair-wise comparison using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method in Expert Choice software were analyzed to get priority weights gathered by the expert opinions. As the result, consistency ratio (CR) was obtained, where Scenario 1 Accessibility is 0.04 and Scenario 2 Environment is 0.07. The outcomes of this study will be suitability model for hillside developments in Malaysia as well as other developing countries.
Keywords: Analytic Hierarchy Process, GIS, Land suitability analysis, Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis