Land Use Suitability Assessment for Economic Development at the Provincial Level : The Case Study of Yazd Province, Iran

Developing economic activities in Yazd Province, Iran, has been carried out at the request of investors and following decisions of the Provincial Planning and Development Council over the last 40 years. This paper aims to support the council's decision by developing an analytical procedure for determining suitable, unsuitable, or conditionally suitable areas for developing various types of economic activity in the form of distinct maps. This is accomplished by combining spatial analysis, GIS with a hybrid Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA)-Rule-Based System (RBS) approach comprised of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and semi/non-compensatory decision rules. According to the findings, a significant portion of the province's total land area is unsuitable for industrial and agricultural activity. This finding directly conflicts with the prevalent practice in Yazd Province over the last three decades. The province appears to have no choice but to focus on high-tech and service sector development, as well as key and dense corridors while shifting other economic activity to the periphery. The proposed model in this study can be used as a real-time Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS). Furthermore, in sequential decision-making processes, the model can examine the effects of previous decisions and adjust its findings/conclusions as needed