Multi‐criteria model for post‐earthquake land‐use planning

A multi‐criteria model is developed for analyzing the land‐use strategies for reducing the future social and economic costs in an area with potential natural hazard. A multi‐criteria decision‐making procedure consists of generating alternatives, establishing criteria, assessment of criteria weights and application of the compromise ranking method (VIKOR). The alternatives are the scenarios of sustainable hazard effects mitigation, generated in the form of comprehensive land‐use plans. The alternative plans should consider the redevelopment of urban areas and infrastructures, multi‐purpose land use, including restrictions on building in hazardous areas. The evaluation of alternatives is implicated with imprecision (or uncertainty) of established criteria, and the fuzzy multi‐criteria model is developed to deal with “qualitative” (unquantifiable or linguistic) or incomplete information. The planning goal is to compromise competitive land uses through choice of the best (compromise) combination of uses. An application of this model is illustrated with the post‐earthquake regional planning problem in central Taiwan.