Geo-physical hazards microzonation and suitable site selection through multicriteria analysis using geographical information system

Abstract

Selecting new suitable settlement sites is challenging in areas of high tectonic activity and multiple geo-physical hazards. The present study was conducted in Muzaffarabad city, located in the active tectonic Himalayan region. The study is based on the integration of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) with geographic information system (GIS) at local scale. Initially, six influencing factors/layers were considered inputs for geotechnical microzonation, distance from fault lines, distance from streams, soil bearing capacity, soil swelling potential, slope gradient, and elevation, whereas for suitable land availability analysis, existing land use was integrated with geotechnical microzonation map. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) algorithm was used to assign the weight and rank values to layers and classes to avoid uncertainty. The weighted overlay method (WOM) was used to integrate the weighted layers and ranked classes. The study's findings reveal that more than half of the study area is unsuitable for settlements, medium suitable areas (39%), and only 10% of the area is classified as properly suitable. In a suitable land availability map, 64% of the land area was found to occupy by partial available (23%) and available land (10.6%), respectively. Concluded that most of the settled areas were found in the unsuitable zone were at significant risk.