DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Multicriteria evaluation <s> In this paper an ex post evaluation of a land-reallotment plan carried out in the Netherlands during the 1960s and 1970s is presented. Given the wide range of effects taken into consideration, a multicriteria approach is adopted. Because of the 'soft' nature of many elements involved, special attention is paid to multicriteria methods dealing with qualitative priorities and plan impacts. Outcomes for methods using qualitative and quantitative data are compared. <s> BIB001 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Multicriteria evaluation <s> In this paper multicriteria evaluation is dealt with as a tool for the public decisionmaking process. In the first part of the paper the systematic approach to multicriteria evaluation is presented, and the consecutive steps of the evaluation process are outlined. This is followed in the second part by the application of mixed-data multicriteria evaluation to the empirical problem of resource allocation in Poland. Mixed-data multicriteria evaluation is presented as a decision-support tool and as a means of facilitating a bargaining process between the involved parties. <s> BIB002 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Multicriteria evaluation <s> Abstract Geographical information systems (GIS) provide the decision-maker with a powerful set of tools for the manipulation and analysis of spatial information. The functionality of GIS is, however, limited to certain deterministic analyses in key application areas such as spatial search. The integration of multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) techniques with GIS is forwarded as providing the user with the means to evaluate various alternatives on the basis of multiple and conflicting criteria and objectives. An example application based on the search for suitable sites for the disposal of radioactive waste in the UK using the Arc/Info GIS is included. The potential use of a combined GIS-MCE approach in the development of spatial decision support systems is considered. <s> BIB003 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Multicriteria evaluation <s> Abstract Land suitability evaluation in a raster GIS environment is conceptualized as a multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. A combination of MCDM techniques selected for implementing the methodology included value and priority assessment techniques for scaling the interval and ordinal data respectively, and compromise programming (CP) to aggregate the unidimensional evaluations. The contribution of the proposed methodology to handle problems of scaling and dependence that often affect expert-based suitability analyses is discussed. A case-study of habitat evaluation for the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel is presented. The multiple-criteria models resulting from the CP analysis of an expert's perception of the habitat preference structure of the red squirrel are compared with data of actual habitat use. The predictive power of the models is good and sensitivity analysis based on the distance-metric parameter p of CP reveals some interesting differences between alternative strategies for... <s> BIB004 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Multicriteria evaluation <s> Abstract Recent developments in geographical information systems have drawn upon concepts of fuzzy set theory and multi-criteria methodology. In this paper we argue that there is a method, Saaty’s Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), that is compatible with both these research directions. The contributions of the AHP are highlighted in the light of recent developments in GIS, with particular attention to the concept of fuzzy set theory. An example of a GIS application is provided to show how the AHP can deal operationally with fuzziness, factor diversity and complexity in problems of land evaluation involving the location of a public facility. <s> BIB005 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Multicriteria evaluation <s> Land suitability mapping techniques and geographic information systems (GIS) have been used in the last decade to assist planners in route selection problems. These techniques, though robust in translating physical constraints into feasible alternatives for route location, are weak in incorporating the decisionmaker's preferences, and, hence, are of limited use for decision support. The decisionmaking process that follows a route location study can be supported by multicriteria evaluation techniques that incorporate decisionmakers' preferences. This paper presents an approach to integrating a GIS-based land suitability analysis and multicriteria evaluation in a spatial decision support system for route selection. The design and implementation of the system are presented together with an example of system application to a study of the route selection for a water transmission supply line. <s> BIB006 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Multicriteria evaluation <s> Decisions about the allocation of land typically involve the evaluation of multiple criteria according to several, often conflicting, objective. With the advent of GIS, we now have the opportunity for a more explicity reasoned environmental decision making process. However, GIS has been slow to develop decision support tools, more typically relying on procedures outside the GIS software. In this paper the issues of multi-criteria/multi- objective decision making are discussed, along with an exploration of a new set of decision support tools appropriate for the large data-handling needs of raster GIS. A case study is used to illustrate these tools as developed for the IDRISI geographic analysis software system <s> BIB007 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Multicriteria evaluation <s> Abstract The multiple criteria group decision-making problem involves a set of feasible alternatives that are evaluated on the basis of multiple, conflicting and noncommensurate criteria by a group of individuals. This paper is concerned with developing a GIS-based approach to group decision-making under multiple criteria. The approach integrates, within a raster GIS environment, the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and Borda's choice rule. TOPSIS orders the feasible alternatives according to their closeness to the ideal solution. It is used to derive the individual preference orderings. Borda's method combines the individual preferences into a group preference or consensus/compromise ranking. The approach is implemented within the IDRISI GIS and illustrated on a hypothetical decision situation. <s> BIB008 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Multicriteria evaluation <s> In assigning suitability scores to individual cells suitability maps do not solve the question of optimally locating regions of a particular size, shape and orientation. This paper describes a parameterized region-growing (PRG) programme for locating sites with particular spatial characteristics on raster suitability maps. PRG is an heuristic which trades off underlying cell suitability and region suitability to locate near optimal regions. The size, boundary configuration, elongation and orientation of an ideal shape are specified by a set of parameters which control a shape growing programme. Two simulations show how parameterized region-growing can locate wildlife reserves with different spatial characteristics. <s> BIB009 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Multicriteria evaluation <s> The limits inherent in conventional decision theory methodologies and the necessity to analyse conflicts between policy objectives have led to many calls for more appropriate analytical tools for strategic evaluation. As such multicriteria evaluation does not itself provide a unique criterion for choice; rather it helps to frame the problem of arriving at a political compromise. This paper, as a first step, deals with the role of multicriteria evaluation methods in the framework of renewable natural resource management. As a second step, the possibility is studied of using multicriteria evaluation methods to tackle problems of integrated water management under drought conditions. We take water management under drought conditions into account because this is an important issue in many southern countries. The term “integrated water management” is used because it is evident that the problems underlying water management can be dealt with only if all the conflicting activities and uses that affect the resource are taken into account. A real-world example in the area of the city of Palermo (western Sicily) is also considered. From this case study, which is a part of a larger project that has been commissioned by the Sicily region, a number of useful lessons can be learned for comparing alternative strategies for the management of a water system under drought conditions. <s> BIB010 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Multicriteria evaluation <s> The protection and reorganisation of rural landscape constitutes one of the main objectives in European Union agro-environmental policy. Since 1985, numerous measures have been approved with the aim of financing landscape improvement and farm reorganisation. These measures were more clearly defined in 1992, when the timing and content of landscape measures were set in the wider context of agro-environmental policy. European Union intervention was motivated by the growing imbalance between the public demand for higher landscape quality and the land transformation carried out by agriculture. On one hand, the societal and cultural changes which have occurred in the last few decades have produced a rise in demand for green (rural) areas for recreation. On the other hand, the spread of labour-saving technology in agriculture has led to an increasing simplification of the landscape and to a considerable reduction in rural landscape quality. This phenomenon can be attributed to the singular economic characteristics of landscape. In many respects, landscape represents a positive externality of agro-forest activity, which assumes the role of a public good. This therefore necessitates corrective action by the public policy maker who will have to use various means to increase the remuneration of those products which generate positive externalities. Public intervention, however, runs the risk of being transformed into welfare aid. In order to guarantee that it is used to remunerate a real service undertaken by the farmer for the benefit of the whole community, the contribution must be commensurate with the benefits produced. The objectives of this study are, first, to analyse which elements of rural landscape contribute to the aesthetic value of landscape and, second, to estimate the trade-offs between economic results of the farm and landscape quality. An application in the Venice Lagoon Basin Region allowed for the identification and quantification of compromise solutions between the landscape objective and the farm profits. These results can be used to assess the economic consequences of improving landscape quality and the suitability for this purpose of European Union subsidies. <s> BIB011 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Multicriteria evaluation <s> Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are designed for the acquisition, management, analysis and display of georeferenced data. As such they have clear implications for informing the spatial decision making process. Subsequently, recent developments in GIS software and in the conceptual basis for decision making have led to dramatic improvements in the capabilities of GIS for resource allocation. These developments are reviewed through an examination of procedures for Multi-Criteria and Multi-Objective land allocation in GIS. Special emphasis is given to the problems of incorporating subjective expertise in the context of participatory decision making; the expression of uncertainty in establishing the relationship between evidence and the decision to be made; procedures for the aggregation of evidence in the presence of varying degrees of tradeoff between criteria; and procedures for conflict resolution and conflict avoidance in cases of multiple objective decision problems. <s> BIB012
Multicriteria evaluation is applicable to the different processes involved in land planning, such as renewable resource management BIB010 , landscape protection BIB011 , evaluation of land-consolidation processes BIB001 , or land-use allocation.  presents different applications of multicriteria evaluation to regional planning. The same techniques have been used by BIB002 to evaluate alternative land-use management plans. In these works, the number of spatial units evaluated is limited. However, land planning requires special attention to the spatial component of data at the same time, which involves the analysis of multiple objectives and criteria. The combined application of multicriteria evaluation techniques and GIS is frequently directed towards obtaining land-suitability maps or selecting sites for a specific activity. The IDRISI software provides multicriteria evaluation tools for obtaining suitability maps  . Multicriteria evaluation techniques based on the ideal point analysis are the techniques that have been more frequently integrated into a GIS with this aim. Compromise programming was applied to habitat-quality evaluation by BIB004 .  used a variation of this technique, in which a second weighting level was introduced. Among this type of technique is TOPSIS, which has been implemented in GIS by BIB008 . In BIB003 , concordance^discordance analysis and hierarchical optimization, in addition to ideal point analysis, were modified to evaluate a high number of alternatives in a GIS environment. Implementation of the concordance analysis in GIS was subsequently developed by BIB006 . Another multicriteria evaluation method frequently integrated into GIS to perform land-suitability analyses is the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) BIB005   . The AHP can also be used to generate the weights assigned to the land-suitability criteria  or to the suitability maps in order to calculate a`compound' suitability score  . These suitability maps can be sufficient in some situations, for example, for the identification of viable regions for a particular land use through the parameterized region-growing program BIB009 . However, these maps do not provide a comprehensive land-use plan. Multicriteria evaluation techniques have also been applied to generate multiple land-use scenarios by selecting the optimum use for each land unit. One technique amongst them, hierarchical optimization  BIB003 , involves allocating the maximum area to the highest priority land use, excluding it from the remaining uses, and repeating the process until the total area is allocated. When the hierarchy of the objectives is not known, a compromise solution can be determined by using the ideal-point method to assign to each spatial unit the land use for which its suitability is the highest, thereby minimizing the suitability of the remaining uses  . BIB007 proposed a heuristic procedure, based on the ideal-point concept, implemented in the MOLA (multiple objective land allocation) module of IDRISI. Examples of the application of this technique to multiple land-use allocation are provided in  , BIB012 , and Van der Merwe (1997).