Determination of Sustainable Land Potential Based on Priority Ranking: Multi-criteria Analysis (MCA) Technique

Advancement in remote sensing technology and geographic information system (GIS) provides an effective tool for monitoring the change of environment in urban areas. At the same time it is very useful for planning, managing and developing the sustainable urbanization city. This paper aims to assess capability of integrating remote sensing and GIS to provide information for urban forest potential sites based on priority parameter ranking in southern Johor. The location was chosen because of rapid urbanization is currently developed by the Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA). High resolution satellite image was used to convey high accuracy in space. The integration of landuse, soils and hydrological information with digital elevation model (DEM) data renders assistance for detecting and locating present ground features and attributes on satellite image. Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) techniques provides structural process for quantifying and comparing the decision elements and criteria in a pair-wise basis for priority ranking urban forestry purpose. The criteria such as slope, soil texture, drainage, spatial area, and availability of natural resource, reservation or protection and also the vicinity of urban area are considered as experimental in this research. Total potential suitability score for each criteria unit (i.e. each cell in a raster map) is calculated from a linear combination of the available criteria for each parameters involved.