## 2 Materials and Methods
### Step II: Generating Urban Land Use Suitability Map via AHP  
[PERSON] [34] introduced AHP to assist decision-makers in handling situations involving numerous conflicting and subjective criteria. Within this method, criteria undergo comparisons utilizing a scale ranging from one to nine. These comparisons categorize criteria as equally important (scaled one), moderately important (scaled three), strongly important (scaled five), very strongly important (scaled seven), extremely important (scaled nine), or with intermediate values (scaled two, four, six, or eight). Subsequently, employing the AHP method, the criteria weights are computed based on the pairwise comparisons matrix. To assess the logical consistency among decision-makers' opinions, the consistency rate (\(CR\)) is computed using Equation (1). This equation incorporates the consistency index (\(CI\)) and the random index (\(RI\)), with the \(CI\) calculated using Equation (2). The \(CI\) serves to evaluate the overall inconsistency of the pairwise comparison matrix, aiming for a value below the designated threshold of 0.1. The \(RI\) consists of values determined by [PERSON] and varies based on the number of criteria. In this study, with 13 criteria employed, the \(RI\) value is considered to be 1.56. Revision of the comparison matrix is warranted if the inconsistency exceeds this threshold [35].  
\[CR=CI/RI \tag{1}\]  
\[CI=\frac{\lambda_{max}-n}{n-1} \tag{2}\]  
To assess urban land use suitability via the AHP technique, a survey was conducted to gather decision-makers' scorings on the selected criteria. A 16-question survey was distributed to 25 participants. The first question required participants to allocate scores to the main criterion groups influencing urban land use suitability analysis, totaling 100 points. Questions 2 to 13 involved scoring the sub-criteria groups based on relative comparisons. Question 14 asked about participants' areas of expertise, while the final question sought additional expert opinions. Participants included 36.4% urban planners, 27.3% surveying engineers, 18.4% academic staff at universities, and 18% personnel from public institutions.  
After determining factor weights using AHP, the subsequent step involved creating a combined suitability map. Here, the weighted linear combination (WLC) method was utilized. This method aims to standardize attribute values for each factor and generate a suitability index by aggregating normalized criteria values. Each alternative's normalized total weight was computed by multiplying its assigned weight with its normalized value and summing these results. In land suitability studies, factors are termed criteria, with each assigned a weight indicating its importance. Criteria are spatially represented through maps or layers and converted into grid file format for integration within a GIS environment. Equation (3) was employed to combine all criteria using the WLC method.  
\[ULSI_{i}=\sum_{j=1}^{n}W_{j}x_{ij} \tag{3}\]  
\(ULSI_{i}\) represents the urban land suitability index for a specific cell \(i\), with \(n\) denoting the number of criteria. \(W_{j}\) signifies the relative importance weight assigned to criterion \(j\), while \(x_{ij}\) denotes the standardized score of cell \(i\) for criterion \(j\)[36].