Environmental strategic assessment based on Land use Suitability Index (LSI) (Case study: District one, Tehran)

Strategic assessment is a method for improving the processes of decision making, policy, and planning. Land use suitability evaluation is a method for strategic assessment of environment. Based on its intrinsic logic, land use suitability assessment method has proper capabilities for strategic assessment. The method tries to shed a light on the issue of how close are the implemented planning projects to the strategic goals. The present study applies Land use Suitability Index (LSI) at district one of Tehran to achieve the following goals: the extent to which a program has influenced the improvement of the present status, and if the method is able to find the proper answers for existing problems and questions. The findings of the present study showed that the applied method is suitable to find the proper answers. It also showed that implementing the proposed method in district one of Tehran has led to relative improvement of the proposed program. It means that improvement has been achieved by decreasing the land use incompatibility and increasing the relative land use compatibility. The results also indicated that if enough attention is paid to some critical parts, even more improvement will be achieved and there would be greater possibility for higher levels of urban development.