Multicriteria geolocation for new urban areas: A case study in three cities of Peru

Urbanization, driven by the population's basic needs and regional geography, can lead to uncontrolled expansion. Therefore, multicriteria geolocation is proposed as an effective tool to identify areas that promote sustainable urban development. The objective of the research was to propose sustainable urban soils based on multicriteria soil types, focusing on the selection of three cities in Junín (Chanchamayo, Tarma and Jauja), Peru. A multicriteria analysis was employed, integrating eight edaphological criteria and the Fuzzy Logit method to manage the uncertainties inherent in geospatial data and calculate fuzzy weights to estimate the probability of urban areas. The results indicated that predominant areas, such as alluvial cones, intrusive rock hills, and extensive vegetation cover, were considered possible zones for urbanization, suggesting that the weights assigned to urbanization varied according to the edaphological criteria and their sub-criteria. The city of Tarma demonstrated notable suitability for urbanization, with 14.54% of its territory showing a probability of urbanization of 0.9; in comparison, Chanchamayo achieved a suitability of 89.22% of its territory, with a probability of urbanization of 0.75, while Jauja stood out as the city with the lowest suitability for urbanization. The application of Fuzzy logistics revealed that the probability of suitability for urbanization in Tarma, Chanchamayo, and Jauja was related to the size of the areas, showing that larger zones had a higher probability of being suitable for urban development.