GIS-BASED MULTI-CRITERIA ANALYSIS IN SPATIAL PLANNING

In the paper GIS-based multi-criteria analysis in spatial planning is discussed in the context of sustainable spatial development. The article focuses on acquiring input geographical and other data and reshaping them into the form suitable for decision making in spatial planning process. When taking into consideration different constrains in multi-criteria evaluation, two major groups of constrains appear in land use suitability analysis in addition to the decision variables: strict constrains which means exclusion of the areas for the selected activity, and partial constrains which are the subject of compromise decisions. The relative importance of each attribute element is determined empirically by the decision maker(s). In our application, the raster layer of partial constrains was created, based on pair-wise overlay product function. The resulted layer of partial constrains served as an input layer, together with strict limitations and decisions variables, for multi-criteria land use suitability analysis in spatial planning.