7. GIS-Based MCA Modeling to Locate Suitable Industrial Sites in Suburb Areas of Bangladesh for Sustainability of Agricultural Lands

Land use changes significantly affect the sustainability of food security, ecological balance, and environmental protections in developing countries. Bangladesh is such a country that faces challenges from limited arable land resources, including the urbanization of agricultural lands and urban developments in suburban areas. Therefore, the aim of this chapter was to determine the land use changes over time in suburban areas that have potential for industrial growth. This chapter also assesses potential locations and the further growth of industries by land suitability analysis (LSA) to emphasize both agriculture and industries in terms of sustainable growth. A geographical information system (GIS)-based multi-criteria analysis (MCA) model was developed for the LSA to distinguish compact lands that were suitable for the economic zones of industries. Nine criteria, including seven constraints and 23 factors, are evaluated by the spatial analysis tools of ArcGIS^®. An analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was applied to prioritize the criteria based on experts’ opinions for the decision-making process of LSA. The study finds that densely located industrial areas have decreased agricultural lands by greater than 10% in the last two decades. Furthermore, the results of the LSA showed that only 4% of the lands were most suitable for industrial sites, whereas four compact lands had 16–10 ha of land, which was suitable for small industrial zones. Thus, the integrated GIS-MCA model could serve as a policy-planning tool to locate the economic zones of industries with sustaining agricultural lands and environmental protections.