Supporting the siting of new urban developments for integrated urban water resource management

Establishing the best location for new urban developments requires a synthesis of a variety of factors that, in view of sustainability principles, need to encompass technical and environmental issues related to urban water as well as broader requirements related to the economic and social characteristics and constraints of the region. The complexity of the problem requires a concise, structured and objective method of data organisation and analysis. Decision support systems (DSS) provide such a framework, aided by the incorporation of multi-criteria analysis. This chapter details the development of a DSS tool, based on a fuzzy inference methodology, able to prioritise areas suitable for new urban areas and to screen out unsuitable sites. The effectiveness of the tool was tested on the Humber sub-region in the UK. Results suggest that the overall suitability evaluation is mostly influenced by the choice of site attributes taken into account and to a lesser degree by analytical processes. It is concluded that the tool is flexible and user friendly and can significantly assist in the assessment and visualisation of the effect of spatial characteristics and user preferences on the siting of new urban developments.