GIS-BASED FOREST FIRE RISK ASSESSMENT USINGTHE AHP AND FUZZY AHP METHODS

摘要

Forest fires have caused irreparable environ- mental and economic losses in all around the world due to global warming. In order to take necessary measures and make fire prevention an response strategies, forest fire risk assessment is curial. This study aims to make forest fires risk assessment in thelargest forest area in istanbul, Turkey. Fire risk as- sessment was carried out by integrating Multi-Crite- ria Decision-Making (MCDM) methods and Geo- graphical Information Systems (GIS). The criteria weights were calculated using the Analytical Hierar- chy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy AHP) methods. Forest fire risk as- sessment was carried out in the Geographical Infor- mation Systems (GIS) environment by using the re- quired data and calculated criteria weights. It is found that although the fire risk limit values differs in some areas, the evaluation results based on the AHP and Fuzzy AHP methods overlap to a large ex- tent. The AHP and Fuzzy AHP methods provided valid, reliable and very useful results in the forest fire risk assessment. This study shows that integrating the AHP and Fuzzy-AHP methods with GIS for for- est fire risk assessment provides very important guidance in making the necessary planning and tak- ing measures for forest fires.