SITE SUITABILITY ANALYSIS FOR URBAN GREEN SPACE DEVELOPMENT: A CASE STUDY OF SHASHAMANE TOWN ETHIOPIA

ABSTRACT The main focus of this study is to identify sites suitable for urban green space development in shashamane town Ethiopia. Land Suitability analysis is the process to determine whether the land resource is suitable for some specific uses or not. Now a day, urban area is increasing from time to time and improper urban expansion can bring adverse impact on urban agriculture, urban green space and environmental condition. The study used GIS and Remote sensing technologies integrated with multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to identify sites suitable for urban green space development in Shashamane town. LULC change dynamics was assessed for years 1991, 2007 and 2021 and the result indicates that, built up area increasing while other areas especially cultivated land is decreasing continuously. Built-up area has been increasing from time to time. In 1991 only 14.9% of the study area was covered by built-up this area increased to 30.2% in 2007 and 44% in 2021 due to rapid urban expansion. Eight factors (land use land cover, distance from main roads, distance from river, distance from noises, elevation, population density and slope of the study area) that affect suitability level of area were used. After construction of pairwise comparison matrix and assigning weight for each factor, weighted overlay analysis was conducted using ArcGIS 10.8 software and the result indicates that 12% of the study area found suitable for green space development followed by 77% and 11% of the study are moderately suitable and unsuitable respectively.