SPATIAL MULTICRITERIA FOR LAND SUITABILITY OF SUSTAINABLE HILLSIDE DEVELOPMENT: A CASE STUDY OF PENANG ISLAND

Due to an increasing scarcity of flat land encroachment of hillsides for development
has become apparent in certain developing countries. This would potentially create
serious environmental issues such as unstable slope collapses, for example, that could
result in the loss of life and property. For this reason, the importance of land
suitability analysis is very crucial for the future of sustainable hillside development.
Hence, the objectives of this study are to detennine the potential accessibility of
hillsides and develop a land suitability model for sustainable hillside development
using a hilly portion of Penang Island as a study area. In this regard, Analytic
Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to weight the suitability criteria and sub-criteria
by the experts. All resultant weights were computed in 'Expert Choice' (EC), a
decision support software using a pairwise comparison matrix to determine priority
weights for land suitability modelling.