Abstract
In many West African countries, ongoing rapid urbanization urges reliable and proactive land use plans for sustainability purposes, which hinges on a complete assessment of land suitability. GIS-based multi-criteria decision analysis (GIS-MCDA) is one of the most widely applied techniques in land-use suitability analysis. It is pivotal that planners and analysts in the developing world have adequate support in conducting such analysis. To lower the financial and technological barriers, a new free and open-source software (FOSS) for GIS-MCDA is developed, called PyLUSATQ. It is designed as a QGIS plugin following a tight-coupling integration strategy, where analytic tools for GIS-based suitability analysis and MCDA are interconnected and seamlessly integrated into QGIS’s processing framework. With this implementation, users can create customized models with the PyLUSATQ tools using QGIS’s Graphical Modeler to automate the workflow for suitability analysis. PyLUSATQ is the first of its kind amongst all plugins published on the QGIS Python Plugin Repository, offering a range of tools for GIS-MCDA within the context of land use planning. To demonstrate its practical application, we created two 2050 future land-use scenarios in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The first scenario depicts a “business-as-usual” model, whereas the second shows an “alternative” scenario if a higher development density was adopted. Comparisons of such scenarios provide evidential support for making informed decisions on land-use policies. Additionally, the methodology introduced here is easily replicable for developing new QGIS plugins based on third-party Python libraries.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
The data supporting the findings of this study are a combination of open datasets and proprietary data owned by the Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority of Ghana. Due to the proprietary nature of some of the datasets, they are not publicly accessible. However, the data can be made available by the authors upon reasonable request and subject to the approval of the Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority of Ghana.
References
Armah, F. A., Odoi, J. O., Yengoh, G. T., Obiri, S., Yawson, D. O., & Afrifa, E. K. A. (2011). Food security and climate change in drought-sensitive savanna zones of Ghana. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 16(3), 291–306. https://doi.org/10.1007/S11027-010-9263-9/FIGURES/7
Atulley, J. A., Kwaku, A. A., Gyamfi, C., Owusu-Ansah, E. D. J., Adonadaga, M. A., & Nii, O. S. (2022). Reservoir sedimentation and spatiotemporal land use changes in their watersheds: The case of two sub-catchments of the White Volta Basin. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 194(11), 809. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10431-y
Ayaim, M. K., Fei-Baffoe, B., Sulemana, A., Miezah, K., & Adams, F. (2019). Potential sites for landfill development in a developing country: A case study of Ga South Municipality, Ghana. Heliyon, 5(10), e02537. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.HELIYON.2019.E02537
Bosompem, C., Stemn, E., & Fei-Baffoe, B. (2016). Multi-criteria GIS-based siting of transfer station for municipal solid waste: The case of Kumasi Metropolitan Area, Ghana. Waste Management and Research, 34(10), 1054–1063. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734242X16658363
Braimoh, A. K., Vlek, P. L. G., & Stein, A. (2004). Land evaluation for maize based on fuzzy set and interpolation. Environmental Management, 33(2), 226–238. https://doi.org/10.1007/S00267-003-0171-6/TABLES/7
Buchhorn, M., Lesiv, M., Tsendbazar, N.-E., Herold, M., Bertels, L., & Smets, B. (2020). Copernicus global land cover layers—collection 2. Remote Sensing, 12(6). https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12061044
Carr, M. H., & Zwick, P. D. (2016). Florida 2070: Mapping Florida’s future—Alternative patterns of development in 2070. University of Florida Geoplan Center.
Chen, C., Judge, J., & Hulse, D. (2022). PyLUSAT: An open-source python toolkit for GIS-based land use suitability analysis. Environmental Modelling & Software, 151, 105362. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2022.105362
CILSS. (2016). Landscapes of West Africa: A window on a changing world. U.S. Geological Survey. https://eros.usgs.gov/westafrica/. Accessed 31 July 2023
Collins, M. G., Steiner, F. R., & Rushman, M. J. (2001). Land-use suitability analysis in the United States: Historical development and promising technological achievements. Environmental Management, 28(5), 611–621. https://doi.org/10.1007/s002670010247
Colsaet, A., Laurans, Y., & Levrel, H. (2018). What drives land take and urban land expansion? A systematic review. Land Use Policy, 79, 339–349. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.08.017
Costanza, R., de Groot, R., Sutton, P., van der Ploeg, S., Anderson, S. J., Kubiszewski, I., Farber, S., & Turner, R. K. (2014). Changes in the global value of ecosystem services. Global Environmental Change, 26(1), 152–158. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.04.002
Dueker, K. J., & Delacy, P. B. (1990). GIS in the land development planning process balancing the needs of land use planners and real estate developers. Journal of the American Planning Association, 56(4), 483–491. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944369008975451
Elhacham, E., Ben-Uri, L., Grozovski, J., Bar-On, Y. M., & Milo, R. (2020). Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass. Nature, 588(7838), 442–444. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-3010-5
Erdoğan, A., & Zwick, P. D. (2016). Spatial decision making under determinism vs. uncertainty: A comparative multi-level approach to preference mapping. Hacettepe Journal of Mathematics and Statistics, 45(4), 1245–1273. https://doi.org/10.15672/HJMS.20157712084
FAO. (1976). A framework for land evaluation (Soils Bulletins, p. 88). FAO. http://www.fao.org/3/X5310E/x5310e00.htm. Accessed 1 Dec 2021
Friedl, M., & Sulla-Menashe, D. (2022). MODIS/Terra+Aqua Land Cover Type Yearly L3 Global 500m SIN Grid V061 [dataset]. NASA EOSDIS Land Processes DAAC. https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MCD12Q1.061
GeoPlan Center. (2018). Military Grid Reference System. University of Florida. http://mgrs-data.org/. Accessed 20 July 2022
Ghana Statistical Services. (2021). Social and demography: Population projection [dataset]. https://statsghana.gov.gh/nationalaccount_macros.php?Stats=MTA1NTY1NjgxLjUwNg==/webstats/s679n2sn87. Accessed 20 July 2022
Gillies, S. (2020). Shapely documentation: Release 1.7.0.
Gillies, S. (2021). Fiona documentation.
Government of Ghana. (2015). Ghana national spatial development framework 2015–2035—Volume I: Space, efficiency, and growth. https://www.luspa.gov.gh/media/plan/NSDF_Final_Report_-_Vol_I_Final_Edition_TAC.pdf. Accessed 19 Jan 2023
Herring, J. R. (Ed.). (2011). OpenGIS® Implementation Standard for Geographic information—Simple feature access—Part 1: Common architecture. Open Geospatial Consortium.
Herrmann, S. M., Brandt, M., Rasmussen, K., & Fensholt, R. (2020). Accelerating land cover change in West Africa over four decades as population pressure increased. Communications Earth & Environment, 1(1), 53. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-020-00053-y
Hopkins, L. D. (1977). Methods for generating land suitability maps: A comparative evaluation. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 43(4), 386–400. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944367708977903
Hurtado, P., & DeAngelis, J. (2022). The use of foresight and scenario planning in Hazard mitigation and climate adaptation planning. American Planning Association. https://www.planning.org/publications/document/9257226/. Accessed 19 Jan 2023
Jagarnath, M., Thambiran, T., & Gebreslasie, M. (2019). Modelling urban land change processes and patterns for climate change planning in the Durban metropolitan area, South Africa. Journal of Land Use Science, 14(1), 81–109. https://doi.org/10.1080/1747423X.2019.1610809
Judge, J., Chen, C., Singh, A., Peelling, J. A., Kiker, G. A., Mensah, F. K., Walther, O., & Owusu-Sekyere, C. (2022). GALUP: Transformative land use planning in Ghana through satellite observations, suitability modeling, and stakeholder engagement. AGU Fall Meeting 2022. https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm22/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/1139392. Accessed 19 Jan 2023
Karikari, I., Stillwell, J., & Carver, S. (2007). The application of GIS in the lands sector of a developing country: Challenges facing land administrators in Ghana. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 19(3), 343–362. https://doi.org/10.1080/13658810412331280149
Kouadio, C. A., Kouassi, K. L., Diedhiou, A., Obahoundje, S., Amoussou, E., Kamagate, B., Paturel, J., Coulibaly, T. J. H., Coulibaly, H. S. J. P., Didi, R. S., & Savane, I. (2022). Assessing the hydropower potential using hydrological models and geospatial tools in the white bandama watershed (Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa). Frontiers in Water, 4, 844934. https://doi.org/10.3389/frwa.2022.844934
Kpiebaya, P., Shaibu, A.-G., YahansAmuah, E. E., Kazapoe, R. W., Salifu, E., & Dekongmen, B. W. (2023). Impact of surficial factors on groundwater quality for irrigation using spatial techniques: Emerging evidence from the northeast region of Ghana. H2Open Journal, 6(3), 387–402. https://doi.org/10.2166/h2oj.2023.156
Kuusaana, E. D., & Eledi, J. A. (2015). Customary land allocation, urbanization and land use planning in Ghana: Implications for food systems in the Wa Municipality. Land Use Policy, 48, 454–466. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.LANDUSEPOL.2015.06.030
Läderach, P., Martinez-Valle, A., Schroth, G., & Castro, N. (2013). Predicting the future climatic suitability for cocoa farming of the world’s leading producer countries, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Climatic Change, 119(3–4), 841–854. https://doi.org/10.1007/S10584-013-0774-8/FIGURES/4
Liu, R., Zhang, K., Zhang, Z., & Borthwick, A. G. L. (2014). Land-use suitability analysis for urban development in Beijing. Journal of Environmental Management, 145, 170–179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.06.020
Lott, R. (Ed.). (2019). Geographic information—Well-known text representation of coordinate reference systems. Open Geospatial Consortium.
Luan, C., Liu, R., & Peng, S. (2021). Land-use suitability assessment for urban development using a GIS-based soft computing approach: A case study of Ili Valley, China. Ecological Indicators, 123, 107333. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.107333
Malczewski, J. (2004). GIS-based land-use suitability analysis: A critical overview. Progress in Planning, 62(1), 3–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.progress.2003.09.002
Malczewski, J. (2006). GIS-based multi-criteria decision analysis: A survey of the literature. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 20(7), 703–726. https://doi.org/10.1080/13658810600661508
Malczewski, J., & Rinner, C. (2015). Multi-criteria decision analysis in geographic information science. Springer Berlin. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74757-4
McKinney, W. (2010). Data structures for statistical computing in Python. 51–56. http://conference.scipy.org/proceedings/scipy2010/mckinney.html. Accessed 20 July 2022
Metaferia, M. T., Bennett, R. M., Alemie, B. K., & Koeva, M. (2023). The peri-urban cadastre of Addis Ababa: Status, challenges, and fit-for-purpose prospects. Land Use Policy, 125, 106477. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2022.106477
Metternicht, G. (2017). Land use planning (Global Land Outlook Working Paper). United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. https://www.unccd.int/resources/publications/land-use-planning. Accessed 20 July 2022
Naïma, K., Helimi, S., Mihoub, A., Mokhtari, S., Kherraze, M. E., & Aouissi, H. A. (2022). Developing a land suitability model for cereals in the Algerian Sahara using GIS and hierarchical multi-criteria analysis. International Journal of Agriculture and Natural Resources, 49(1), 36–50. https://doi.org/10.7764/ijanr.v49i1.2323
Nourqolipour, R., Shariff, A. R. B. M., Balasundram, S. K., Ahmad, N. B., Sood, A. M., & Buyong, T. (2016). Predicting the effects of urban development on land transition and spatial patterns of land use in Western Peninsular Malaysia. Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy, 9(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12061-014-9128-9
Olafsson, A. S., & Skov-Petersen, H. (2014). The use of GIS-based support of recreational trail planning by local governments. Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy, 7(2), 149–168. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12061-013-9094-7
OpenStreetMap contributors. (2020). Ghana roads. https://www.openstreetmap.org/. Accessed 1 Dec 2021
Owusu, S., Mul, M. L., Ghansah, B., Osei-Owusu, P. K., Awotwe-Pratt, V., & Kadyampakeni, D. (2017). Assessing land suitability for aquifer storage and recharge in northern Ghana using remote sensing and GIS multi-criteria decision analysis technique. Modeling Earth Systems and Environment, 3(4), 1383–1393. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40808-017-0360-6
Pettit, C. J., Klosterman, R. E., Delaney, P., Whitehead, A. L., Kujala, H., Bromage, A., & Nino-Ruiz, M. (2015). The online what if? Planning support system: A land suitability application in Western Australia. Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy, 8(2), 93–112. https://doi.org/10.1007/S12061-015-9133-7
QGIS. (2022). QGIS Plugins. https://plugins.qgis.org/. Accessed 20 July 2022
Ristić, V., Maksin, M., Nenković-Riznić, M., & Basarić, J. (2018). Land-use evaluation for sustainable construction in a protected area: A case of Sara mountain national park. Journal of Environmental Management, 206, 430–445. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JENVMAN.2017.09.080
Russo, P., Lanzilotti, R., Costabile, M. F., & Pettit, C. J. (2018). Towards satisfying practitioners in using Planning Support Systems. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 67, 9–20. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.COMPENVURBSYS.2017.08.009
Saaty, T. L. (2008). Decision making with the analytic hierarchy process. International Journal of Services Sciences, 1(1), 83–98.
Ugbaje, S. U., Odeh, I. O. A., & Bishop, T. F. A. (2019). Fuzzy measure-based multi-criteria land assessment for rainfed maize in West Africa for the current and a range of plausible future climates. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 158, 51–67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2019.01.011
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. (2022). World population prospects: The 2022 revision [dataset]. https://population.un.org/wpp/. Accessed 19 Jan 2023
Vonk, G., Geertman, S., & Schot, P. (2005). Bottlenecks blocking widespread usage of planning support systems. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 37(5), 909–924. https://doi.org/10.1068/A3712
Vonk, G., Geertman, S., & Schot, P. (2007). A SWOT analysis of planning support systems. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 39(7), 1699–1714. https://doi.org/10.1068/A38262
Whitaker, J., Snow, A. D., Cochran, M., Karney, C., Ouzounoudis, G., Dearing, J., Kloe, J. de, Heitor, Filipe, May, R., Itkin, M., Eubank, N., Dunphy, M., Brett, M., Costa, M. A. da, Maeyer, J. de, Gohlke, C., Willoughby, C., Barker, C., …, & Couwenberg, B. (2019). pyproj: Version 2.0.2 release [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.2592233
WorldPop. (2020). Global high resolution population denominators project [dataset]. WorldPop. https://doi.org/10.5258/SOTON/WP00674
Worqlul, A. W., Dile, Y. T., Jeong, J., Adimassu, Z., Lefore, N., Gerik, T., Srinivasan, R., & Clarke, N. (2019). Effect of climate change on land suitability for surface irrigation and irrigation potential of the shallow groundwater in Ghana. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 157, 110–125. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.COMPAG.2018.12.040
Xu, E., & Zhang, H. (2013). Spatially-explicit sensitivity analysis for land suitability evaluation. Applied Geography, 45, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.APGEOG.2013.08.005
Zein, T., Timm, C., & Hartfiel, D. P. (2015). Concept, design and development of land administration and cadastre systems using open source software. World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, Washington, D.C
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their time to help improve this paper. In addition, we acknowledge funding from the Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER) and NASA/USAID-SERVIR Program (Award # 80NSSC20K0153) to support this research.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Chen, C., Guo, Z. & Judge, J. A QGIS Plugin for GIS-based Multicriteria Decision Analysis: an Application of Developing Alternative Future Land-Use Scenarios in Ghana. Appl. Spatial Analysis (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12061-024-09566-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12061-024-09566-x