Site Selection and Analyzing the Development Status of Urban Forestry in Tabriz Using GIS and MCDM

With the development of urbanization, humans gradually shifted away from nature and, to the same extent and the environmental, physical and spiritual needs of man to the green space are increased. The objective of this study is to locate areas prone to developing urban forestry in the metropolis of Tabriz, from the point of view of the necessity of development and the need of citizens (not ecologically) and present developmental solutions. 14 criteria were chosen as standardized in format of Raster maps based on previous research and expert opinions. The pair comparison table comprised the criteria and the weight and importance of each criterion were calculated. After completing the multi-criteria evaluation process, the final map of the priority areas for the development of urban forestry was produced and the area and the percentage of the first, second and third priorities were calculated. Accordingly, 29.8% of the Tabriz area has the highest priority for the development of green space. In the next step, by overlaying the finalized map with the current land use map, the area and percentage of each of the first, second and third priorities located in the current land use classes were obtained. Comparison of these maps showed that 50% of the priority areas for urban forest development, were located in the existing residential areas, 39% were in vacant fields, 9.5% were in agricultural lands and gardens, and 1.5% were in the current green space. These results indicate excessive and unbalanced construction accumulation in most municipality districts of Tabriz. Therefore the general policy in these areas should be stopping new construction and prioritize changing the worn out texture of the city to green space.