Fuzzy-GIS development of land evaluation system for agricultural production in North West Libya

The continuing deterioration of land and water resources occurring in several regions of the world is partly as a result of the mismatch between land suitability or capability and land use. Failure to achieve a perfect match between land capability and use can be particularly problematic for agricultural production because cultivating the wrong crops on wrong soils can only result in poor yields and its associated financial and other losses. There is therefore, a pressing need for effective land evaluation through better matching of land characteristics with land use to achieve optimal utilisation of available land resources for sustainable agricultural production. As far as agriculture is concerned such an exercise will result in defining which part of an area is suitable for particular crops, based on the available land resources and other production inputs, and which parts are better left for other uses. In this study, a land evaluation system for predicting the physical suitability of land for key crops, namely Wheat, Barley and Olive in the north west of Libya was developed based on matching land use requirement for these crops with the available land resources in the area. It involved a modelling strategy based on Boolean and Fuzzy logic sets, implemented within a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment. While the Boolean method assumes that the attributes of a given soil type are known with certainty and the boundaries between soil types are clearly defined, Fuzzy logic can be used to accommodate uncertainties in the available knowledge on these attributes through the use of membership functions. The GIS-based models developed comprise four layers; namely, soil, climate, slope and erosion hazard all of which have been shown directly influence land suitability for agricultural production. This resulted in the classification of the soil into 4 suitability classes, i.e. high suitability, moderate suitability, marginal suitability and not suitable. The results show that for Barley for example 52% of the soil in the north western Libya is highly suitable using Fuzzy approach while the corresponding figure for the Boolean is 62%. The two approaches were compared on cell by cell basis using map agreement. The comparison shows that there were reasonable agreements in evaluations by the two approaches for barley, wheat and olive of 51%, 46% and 56% respectively

Mitigating the Effects of Climate Change with Wind Energy and GIS

The climate is changing, and humans are heavily exacerbating these changes. As the effects of climate change are being felt across the planet, scientists and policy makers are uniting to increase mitigation efforts and are researching renewable, clean energy sources to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere during energy production. Of the different renewable energy technologies, wind energy is one of the most researched and implemented. Over the past twenty years, researchers have been applying Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to their climate change studies. GIS allows the user to spatially view, manipulate, and analyze data to determine patterns, trends, and relationships. This paper examines the use of GIS as a tool in wind power studies to locate potential wind farm sites, model wind farm energy output, and assess the potential for implementing wind energy

Three Decades of Fuzzy AHP: A Bibliometric Analysis

[EN] For decades, Fuzzy Sets Theory (FST) has been consistently developed, and its use has spread across multiple disciplines. In this process of knowledge transfer, fuzzy applications have experienced great diffusion. Among them, Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (fuzzy AHP) is one of the most widely used methodologies today. This study performs a systematic review following the PRISMA statement and addresses a bibliometric analysis of all articles published on fuzzy AHP in journals indexed in Web of Science, specifically in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). The analyzed database includes 2086 articles published between 1994 and 2022. The results show the thematic clusters, the evolution of the academic conversation and the main collaboration networks. The main contribution of this article is to clarify the research agenda on fuzzy AHP. The results of the study allow academics to detect publication opportunities. In addition, the evidence found allows researchers and academics setting the field¿s agenda to advise the editors of high-impact journals on gaps and new research trends.Castello-Sirvent, F.; Meneses-Eraso, C.; Alonso-Gómez, J.; Peris-Ortiz, M. (2022). Three Decades of Fuzzy AHP: A Bibliometric Analysis. Axioms. 11(10):1-34. https://doi.org/10.3390/axioms11100525134111

Development of procedures for land use assessment at the regional scale

Multi-criteria land evaluation is an important process required for sustainable resource management. During the process of land evaluation, various factors related to land and corresponding resources need to be addressed. Availability of simple, ready to use procedures is particularly valuable for land evaluation. In this thesis approaches and tools aimed at the evaluation of land use change processes and land suitability for rural tourism, as well as sensitivity analysis procedure for land evaluation models are presented

Geographic Information Systems supported by multi-criteria decision analysis to indicate potentially suitable areas for construction and demolition waste disposal

In Brazil, the disposal of construction and demolition waste (CDW) quite often occurs in inadequate places, resulting in social, economic, and environmental problems. This reflects the need for selecting appropriate areas for the disposal of this type of waste. These areas must follow local standards and regulations to protect human health and the environment. Considering that, this study is intended to indicate potentially suitable areas for CDW landfill deployment, known as Class A landfill in Brazil, supported by a GIS-MCDA based model. The GIS-MCDA technique, used as a basic tool to identify potentially suitable areas, has several advantages, such as low cost, reduced spatial data subjectivity, and fast decision-making process. The place chosen for this study is the Urban Central Core of the Metropolitan Area of Curitiba. By integrating GIS with MCDA techniques in this research study, it was possible to indicate potentially suitable areas for CDW disposal in this region

Multicriteria Decision Making in Sustainable Tourism and Low-Carbon Tourism Research: A Systematic Literature Review

Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM) is increasingly being utilized as an analytical research tool for sectors that require decision-making with specific objectives and constraints, such as the tourism industry. Sustainable tourism, which examines the balance of numerous aspects, including stakeholders’ interests, is the critical feature propelling the increased usage of MCDM. This paper explores the use of Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods applied in studies of sustainable tourism and its derivative term, low-carbon tourism, using a systematic literature review (SLR) search from the Scopus database. The analysis has identified 189 relevant studies published between 1987 to April 2022. After selection, screening, and synthesizing processes, we selected 135 pertinent studies, which were analysed in general descriptive data, citation impacts, geographical categorization, categorization of the methodologies’ objectives, and possible trajectories of similar research in the future. We find that highly cited authors and articles are related to sustainable tourism indicators\u27 development and case studies. Furthermore, most relevant studies are concentrated in Asia and Europe rather than other regions. We also categorize the reviewed studies into six classifications depending on each method\u27s intended usage and further suggest four contexts for the studies’ future trajectory