Land Subsidence Risk Zoning in Sarab Plain, using MARCOS and CODAS Multi-Criteria Analysis Algorithms

Among the risks facing the plains in Iran is subsidence, which causes many problems in agricultural lands, roads, power, and energy transmission lines. In recent years, Sarab plain has faced a sharp drop in the level of underground water, which has caused this area to be exposed to the risk of subsidence. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate and analyze the most important factors involved in creating the risk of subsidence in Sarab plain and to identify the susceptible surfaces that are likely to be involved in subsidence in the future, using the multi-criteria MARCOS and CODAS algorithms. According to the results of subsidence risk zoning, water depth, land use, and slope, respectively, with weight coefficients of 0.194, 0.171, and 0.159, are the most important factors involved in creating the risk of subsidence in the studied area. The output of the MARCOS method showed that, respectively, 167.50 and 276.09 square kilometers of the area of Sarab Plain, and results of applying the CODAS method, showed that 187.13 and 279.03 square kilometers of the area are in the high-risk and critical category. In addition, the map extracted from the MARCOS and CODAS algorithms with the depth of the water level of the wells, respectively, have correlation coefficient values of 0.77 and 0.81. A correlation can be seen between the output of both methods with the water level map. It seems that the results of this study can be of great help to organizational managers and land and soil resource planners for protecting and managing water resources and natural hazards and preventing land degradation.