Spatial analysis of Environmental Suitability of Shiraz City Using Environmental Suitability Analysis

Urban Physical development has been the major concern of urban planners during recent years, therefore, better understanding of urban and its development is necessary for sustainable development. Urban physical development resulted to destroying Agricultural lands, moving to hazardous areas like flooding areas, hazardous earthquake areas, unreliable slopes which in fact damages ecological balance and sustainability in cities. Shiraz, as an example, shows that urban physical development due to rapid growth of population and lack of ecological and environmental considerations results in development of city to hazardous ecological and natural areas. This research is to answer following question: Is physical development of Shiraz city happened toward natural hazardous areas and occurred in farmlands and gardens during 1956-2006?The aim of this research is remarking which areas developed in natural and environmental vulnerable area. Urban sustainability means ecological-physical balance which considers natural and environmental urban physical development. Analysis of these variables was performed by linear combination technique with regard to information structure and its ability to be used in computer systems. After choosing ecological and topographical criteria like slope, height, dangerous earthquake areas and farmland were graded by linear combination. Then, these criteria were analyzed and combined by ArcGIS software tools. The results showed that from the total area of the city, 38.6 percent are unfavorable zones, 38.5 percent lower zones and only 22.8 percent comprises the appropriate zone. This situation indicates that the environmental suitability of Shiraz city is low.