Assessment of sustainable urban development based on a hybrid decision-making approach: Group fuzzy BWM, AHP, and TOPSIS–GIS

Abstract The present study aimed to develop a practical framework consisting of GIS and MCDM to assess the development sustainability of Karaj, a city in the west of Tehran, Iran. Firstly, the influencing factors on sustainable urban development including seven criteria and 24 sub-criteria were screened and selected based on literature review, interviews with experts and Delphi technique. Then, the criteria were weighted and prioritized using Group Fuzzy BWM (GFBWM) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methods. Fuzzy logic and Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) methods in GIS were used to determine the sustainability of Karaj for urban development. Finally, Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) was used to rank the identified areas. Our findings showed that the socioeconomic criterion and employment sub-criterion were the most important in AHP and GF-BWM methods. Both methods estimated that about 30% of the entire study area was highly sustainable in terms of urban development with no significant difference between the two methods. Finally, TOPSIS selected the center and north of the city as those with the highest priority. The integrated approach used in this study provided a flexible tool for analysis of the sustainable development, useful for planners and city managers.