Evaluation of Geothermal Resource Development Potential Using an Improved Analytic Hierarchy Process Method

Determining geothermal target area priorities benefits overall planning of geothermal resource development. This study investigated five geothermal resource target areas in the Songyuan area of China by developing and applying an improved analytic hierarchy process to four factors: water chemistry, water temperature, water volume, and reservoir thickness. After quantisation of the data, it was normalised and standardised to obtain a decision matrix. Finally, MATLAB was used to calculate the eigenvectors and eigenvalues, and the results passed the consistency test. The results show that the Fuyu area has the highest development priority and the Ningjiang area has the lowest