Abstract:
Suitability analysis is a prerequisite for sustainable agricultural production and it
involves evaluation of the environmental parameters. The development and creation of
appropriate points for this land use without considering environmental capability will
result in the appearance of several ecological, economic, and social problems. The MultiCriteria
Decision Making (MCDM) Models were used for solving such problems.
Takestan-Qazvin region is one of the biomes that have difficulties due to lack of a
systematic administration on environmental resources. This research was done in the
framework of the ecological model and by using multicriteria decision making methods
such as Analytic Network Process (ANP), Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) and Vlse
Kriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje - Analytical Hierarchy Process
(VIKOR-AHP)in GIS environment with the aim of choosing the suitable locations for
agricultural land use in Takestan-Qazvin Plain. However, the purpose of this study was
twofold: first, it was aimed at determining the ecological capability of agricultural land
use by using ANP and SAW methods. Second, the suitable agricultural alternatives in this
region were ranked using the integrated VIKOR and AHP models. In these methods, the
ratings and the weights of the criteria are known precisely. Ecological factors such as
physical and biological parameters and economic - social factors were chosen as the major
criteria affecting the agriculture land use. The research indicated that north parts of the
study area were not suitable for agricultural development. Finally, the conclusion showed
that the application of decision making models could be useful in environmental capacity
evaluation of agricultural land use.
Keywords: Analytic network process, Ecological evaluation, Environmental criteria, GIS,
Simple additive weighting method
