## 2 Materials and Methods
### Step I: Data Set Preparation for Urban Land Use Suitability Analysis
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline
**Criteria Group** & **Data Source** & **Criteria** & **Data Type** & **Scale/Resolution** \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Topographical} & \multirow{3}{*}{ALOS PALSAR DEM} & Elevation (m) & \multirow{3}{*}{Raster} & \multirow{3}{*}{12.5 m} \\  & & Slope (\%) & & \\  & & Aspect & & \\ \hline LULC & ESA World Cover & LULC & Raster & 10 m \\ \hline \multirow{6}{*}{Accessibility} & \multirow{6}{*}{Municipal Data} & Distance to Roads & \multirow{6}{*}{Vector} & \multirow{6}{*}{1:25,000} \\  & & Distance to Trade and & & \\ \cline{1-1} \cline{5-5}  & & Industrial Zones & & \\ \cline{1-1} \cline{5-5}  & & Distance to Bus Stops & & \\ \cline{1-1} \cline{5-5}  & & Distance to Port & & \\ \cline{1-1} \cline{5-5}  & & Distance to Residential Areas & & \\ \cline{1-1} \cline{5-5}  & & Distance from Coastline & & \\ \cline{1-1} \cline{5-5}  & & Distance from Streams & & \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Soil} & General Directorate of & \multirow{3}{*}{Land Use Capability} & \multirow{3}{*}{Raster} & \multirow{3}{*}{25 m} \\  & Mineral Research and & & Classification & \\ \cline{1-1} \cline{5-5}  & Exploration (MTA) & & & \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Geology} & General Directorate of & \multirow{3}{*}{Lithological Structure} & \multirow{3}{*}{Raster} & \multirow{3}{*}{25 m} \\  & Mineral Research and & & & \\ \cline{1-1} \cline{5-5}  & Exploration (MTA) & & & \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Geospatial datasets used in urban land use suitability analysis. Figure 2: (**a**) Elevation, (**b**) slope, and (**c**) aspect maps of the study area. In determining urban development and settlement, numerous attractive forces exist, and one of these criteria is **LULC**. LULC changes that contribute to urban development and non-urban land cover around the city need to be examined in urban suitability analysis [27]. In this context, the inclusion of the current LULC data set is essential for this analysis. In this study, the 'World Cover 10 m 2021' product from the European Space Agency was utilized. This product provides a global LULC map for the year 2021 with a spatial resolution of 10 m, based on Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellite data [28]. The map shown in Figure 3 illustrates a clipped version of the ESA World Cover data set for our study area, generalized with five LULC classes. The rationale for this generalization was the need to produce classes consistent with the satellite image classification work conducted in the subsequent sub-sections. These five LULC classes include water surfaces, non-agricultural and non-forest areas, agricultural areas, built-up areas, and forest areas. Accessibility to natural and human-made elements possesses a significant power in determining urban development and suitability [27; 29; 30]. **Distance to roads** particularly delineates the corridors of technical infrastructure and urban development. Additionally, accessibility to technical infrastructure areas such as **trade and industrial zones**, **bus stops**, and **ports**, as well as **distance to residential areas**, should be included in this evaluation. As the distance to these areas increases, urban suitability decreases. Similarly, as **the distance from coastline** increases, urban development suitability decreases. The reason for this is the influence of the coastline on the development of coastal cities throughout history. **Distance from streams** is also important for urban settlement suitability analysis. Studies have shown that increasing distance from streams decreases suitability for settlement. Figure 4 illustrates all accessibility criteria prepared in the GIS environment for the study area. Moreover, the sub-criteria intervals for each criterion were determined through expert opinions and the relevant literature. Urban planning is influenced by the condition of **soil (land use) capability**, which is one of the fundamental constraints related to site selection. In this study, official 'Land Use Capability Classification' maps were used for the soil capability criterion.