Design of a GIS and multi-criteria based land evaluation procedure for sustainable land-use planning at the regional level Thanh Tuan Nguyen a, c, *, Ann Verdoodt b, c , Van Y Tran a , Nele Delbecque b , Thuy Chi Tran a , Eric Van Ranst c a Vietnam National Museum of Nature, VAST, 18 Hoang Quoc Viet, Cau Giay District, Ha Noi, Vietnam b Research Unit of Soil Degradation and Conservation, Department of Soil Management, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium c Laboratory of Soil Science, Department of Geology and Soil Science (WE13), Ghent University, Gent, Belgium A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 19 July 2014 Received in revised form 9 October 2014 Accepted 19 October 2014 Available online xxx Keywords: Agro-ecological aptitude Environmental impact Socio-economic feasibility Land suitability Rubber Vietnam A B S T R A C T Design: of comprehensive, standardized land evaluation tools is challenged by constraints of scale, data availability, validity, and mathematical translation and combination of diagnostic indicators. This study aims to design a GIS-based multi-criteria land suitability analysis that integrates agro-ecological aptitude, environmental impact and socio-economic feasibility criteria in a step-wise procedure combining recent advances in indicator selection, evaluation and weighing – exploiting information from various data sources – with functional mathematical combination procedures. The procedure involves: (1) selection of diagnostic land characteristics, (2) design of the corresponding evaluation criteria and consequent scoring of the diagnostic characteristics, (3) arithmetic combination of the scored characteristics into partial performance indices for agro-ecological aptitude, environmental impact and socio-economic feasibility, and (4) classification of the performance indices into aptitude, impact, and feasibility classes and determination of the overall land suitability class of the proposed land use. The tool’s performance and applicability proved successful in a case study, identifying expansion zones for rubber in Quang Tri province, Vietnam. Local expert knowledge, relevant literature sources, factor-yield relationships and the discriminating power of different land characteristics within the given environment were successfully integrated to select, score and weigh diagnostic land characteristics. Explicit distinction between factors and constraints depending on the fuzziness of their spatial patterns, and between limiting and non-limiting factors depending on their impact and interaction, furthermore allowed to apply the most relevant arithmetic combination procedures. ã 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Global driving forces in land-use planning are either needs for improved, resource-use efficient management, or demands for a revised land-use pattern, dictated by changing environmental or socio-economic circumstances. In 1996, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) defined land-use planning as the systematic assessment of land and water potential, land-use alternatives and socio-economic conditions in order to adopt the best land-use options (FAO, 1996). The definition highlighted the ecological, socio-economic and environmental aspects that need to be taken into account in the planning process. Land evaluation has always been considered a core component of land-use planning (FAO, 1996; Roetter et al., 2005; Baja et al., 2007). In 2007, the FAO land evaluation framework concepts and methodological approaches have been revised and expanded, taking into account much more explicitly the different functions and services offered by land and soil, threats to sustainable land uses, and limitations finding its origin in economic and societal conditions (FAO, 2007). Land-use planning implies weighing trade-offs among con- flicting goals. Multi-criteria analysis (MCA) is a methodology by which the relative merits of different options (e.g. land uses or land management practices) can be compared by using a range of quantitative and qualitative criteria (Center for International Forestry Research, 1997). The relative importance of these criteria is typically expressed using weights, whereas the performance of the land use under consideration for each criterion is generally expressed as a score or suitability class. Weights can be assigned * Corresponding author at: Vietnam National Museum of Nature, VAST, 18 Hoang Quoc Viet, Cau Giay District, Ha Noi, Vietnam. Tel: +84 437568328; fax: +84 437568328. E-mail addresses: legis_tuan@vnmn.vast.vn, legis_tuan@yahoo.com (T.T. Nguyen), ann.verdoodt@UGent.be (A. Verdoodt), ytranvan@yahoo.com (T. Van Y), Nele.Delbecque@UGent.be (N. Delbecque), chitranthuy51@gmail.com (T.C. Tran), eric.vanranst@UGent.be (E. Van Ranst). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2014.10.015 0167-8809/ ã 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 200 (2015) 1–11 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment journal homepage: www.elsev ier.com/locate /agee