Gis?multi criteria decision analysis?based land suitability assessment for dam site selection

In this study, the appropriate areas were determined to select the most suitable dam sites within the borders of Sivas/Turkey with the help of Geographic Information System (GIS) according to the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, which is one of the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. Nine criteria (elevation, slope, distance to roads, rainfall, lineament density, distance to residential areas, land use/land cover, soil types and stream density) were used for dam site selection. The CR (Consistency) value was calculated as 0.054 for the criteria considered in the selection of the dam site within the scope of the AHP method, and this value showed that the results obtained were consistent and acceptable. The suitability categories revealed by the dam site selection suitability map created with the method were represented by 5 different classes “very high (12.70%),” “high (20.63%),” “medium (25.43%),” “low (25.11%)” and “very low (16.12%).” Most of the dams currently operating in Sivas province (64.63%) were in the "high" and "medium" level of suitability, while the majority of the planned dams (57.14%) were represented by the "low" class of suitability. The dam site selection suitability mapping obtained as a result of the study is a very important tool in terms of providing resource data to decision makers for regional water resources management and sustainable development.