Developing a Master Urban Plan for the west Bitter Lakes Region, Ismailia, Egypt, using geology considerations and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP)

The goal of this study was to identify potential sites in the Bitter Lakes region for urban and agricultural development. Residential, institutional, commercial, and industrial lands are the four categories of urban land. Agrarian, parks, and green zones are examples of cultivated lands. Economic, social, and environmental factors are the key dimensions of Egypt's 2030 Sustainable Development Strategy. Economic development is the most significant and highest priority dimension, which comprises developing agricultural areas, supporting agro-industry (national industry), and constructing new urban settlements in order to accomplish integrated development. The suitable lands for future development were selected according to geomorphological, hydrological, environmental, social, and geological parameters. These parameters were used to create geospatial database for the study area. To avoid any future problems might be resulting from mis-planning, accurate and modern land use planning principals, field work, laboratory tests and analyses, remote sensing, and GIS techniques were integrated. To get the final highly suitable lands for development; analytical hierarchy process (AHP) steps were applied. AHP used to identify the best suitable lands from a set of alternatives with respect to several criteria and their weights. Finally, the research area was separated into three major zones to design the urban master plan: core urban zone, outer urban zone, and outskirts zone.