Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Land-Use Suitability Analysis
The objective of land-use suitability analysis is
the identification of the most appropriate spatial pattern for future land uses in
such a way that a set of requirements, properties and preferences are satisfied
(Collins et al.
2001
; Malczewski
2004
). The use of GIS based approaches in
this context can be considered the natural evolution of the hand-drawn overlay
techniques used by architects and planners to represent maps where different
attributes and characteristics should be shown. This general concept can be applied
in a wide variety of situations (i.e. urban and regional planning, environmental
impact evaluation, land habitat for animal and plant species, agricultural, ecological
and geological applications, public and private site facilities). Given a context where
a study area is subdivided into a set of territorial units, it is possible to distinguish
between a site selection and a site generation problem. In the first case, given a set
of potential feasible sites with known attributes and characteristics, the objective
consists in the selection of one or more facilities. This is generally performed by
combining the facilities' attributes according to some ranking or rating rules. In the
site search problem apart from the location(s) to be selected, it is also necessary to
determine the site characteristics (i.e. extension, shape).
Hence, models oriented to land-use suitability analysis may consider very
different sectors. A traditional field is represented by the so-called conservation
planning, i.e. the activities related to the selection of protected areas based on
scientific considerations in order to reduce the risks of habitat fragmentation and,
consequently, on the related ecosystem due to the impact of land-use activities.
The increasing success in the use of GIS to tackle these problems lies in the
fact that most of the criteria for conservation planning are spatial data. In this
context, as already indicated by Church (
2002
), a traditional field of applications
of GIS based approaches concerns the forest conservation planning in which
the problem mainly consists in the identification of corridors and/or portions
of territory in order to extend protected areas and assure continuity (Phua and
Minowa
2005
; Liu et al.
2014
). The same problem can also be tackled by formally
assessing the environmental impact of land-use activities such as the location of new
infrastructures and by then selecting the minimum impact solution. A wide variety
of applications have been developed to consider various aspects and situations
related to these conservation issues (Marulli and Mallarach
2005
; Liu et al.
2007
;
do Carmo Giordano and Riedel
2008
; Geneletti
2008a
,
b
; Geneletti and van Duren
2008
; Silberman and Rees
2010
; Sherrouse et al.
2011
; Swetnam et al.
2011
). The
vast majority of these applications and case studies use the multi-layer functionality
of GIS to collect data and information (quantitative and qualitative) in order to define
criteria-based evaluation for prioritization and selection of potential solutions. Once
the criteria have been defined and measured, multi-criteria methods are usually
applied to provide the final ranking.
Waste Management
It indicates the set of activities (waste reduction, reuse, recy-
cling, composting and disposal) associated with the overall chain of managing solid
waste in order to reduce its impact on the environment. The problem of solid
waste management has assumed significant dimensions in modern urban centers,
