Proposal of a Web-Based Multi-criteria Spatial Decision Support System (MC-SDSS) for Agriculture

The paper reports the main technological characteristics and functionalities of a web-based Multi-criteria Spatial Decision Support System (MC-SDSS) implemented on free open source software for geospatial (FOSS4G) environment. The web-based MC-SDSS was designed to perform land suitability evaluation (LSE) for olive crops and applied to the territory of Calabria (Italy). From a technological point of view, the MC-SDSS was designed on a multi-tier architecture compliant with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) services (WFS, web feature service; WCS, web coverage service, and WMS, web map service. Moreover, it was enabled to processes executable via OGC web processing services (WPSs). LSE of olive crops is provided following the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) based on the different judgements obtained from experts and aggregated through the weighted linear combination (WLC). With the aim to implement an effective planning tool, the WebGIS client was designed to manage three different type of users with different level of privileges: Guest, Expert and Decision Maker. The results are expressed as multi-attribute geospatial maps (land suitability maps) and as distribution graphs according to the envisaged land suitability classes (not suitable, low, medium, high and very high suitability).