Use of Fuzzy Extent AHP based Decision Support System and Geographic Information System to Site Wind Turbines in a Sustainable Manner

In this paper we use the fuzzy extent analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the ArcGIS geographical information system to develop a decision support tool to aid stakeholders select the most suitable and sustainable site for a wind turbine farm in Zamfara State, Nigeria. We use fuzzy sets and fuzzy numbers to deal with vagueness of human thought in the selection process and develop the problem hierarchy with the various criteria which will be evaluated to obtain the fuzzy comparison matrices which are then used to calculate of fuzzy synthetic extents. The comparison of fuzzy synthetic extents, the evaluation of the minimum degree of possibilities. and normalization of weight vectors are done to aggregate the local weights to obtain scores and ranking of the alternative sites for the wind turbine. We then use the weighted linear combination technique in ARCGIS to generate raster suitability maps and produce a composite suitability map for the turbine sites as output.