Municipal solid waste collection points (MSWCPs) are places where residents of municipalities can leave their waste free of charge. MSWCPs should operate in every municipality in Poland. The Geographic Information System (GIS) and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) were used in conjunction as tools to determine potential locations of MSWCPs. Due to possible social conflicts related to the location of MSWCPs, three variants of buffer zones for a residential area were adopted. As a result of the spatial analysis carried out using the GIS software, 247 potential locations were identified in variant no. 1 (which accounted for 7.1% of commune area), 167 for variant no. 2 (6.3% of commune area), and 88 for variant no. 3 (3.8% of commune area). The most favourable locations for MSWCPs were determined using the AHP method with additional criteria for which weights were calculated as follows: the area of a designated plot (0.045), actual designation of a plot in the local spatial development plan (0.397), distance from the centre of the village (0.096) and the commune (0.231), and population density of a village (0.231). The highest weights (over 50%) in the AHP analysis were obtained for 12 locations in variant no. 3, two of which had an area over 3 ha. The adopted methodology enabled to identify quasi-optimal solutions for MSWCP locations in the analysed rural commune. This research has the potential to influence future waste management policies by assisting stakeholders in the MSWCP location.

This paper presents a study conducted using the Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) to explore surface irrigation potential zones in the Didesa sub-basin of the Abay basin in Ethiopia. Physical land features, such as land use / land cover (LULC), slope, soil depth, drainage, and road proximity, along with climate factors like rainfall and evapotranspiration, and population density, were identified as criteria for the exploration. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is a powerful structured decision-making technique commonly used for complex multi-criteria analysis problems where multiple criteria need to be considered. The importance of the criteria was prioritised and ranked in the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Five qualitative-quantitative based surface irrigation potential zones were identified, namely highly suitable (48.40%), moderately suitable (27.26%), marginally suitable (13.27%), not suitable (4.91%), and irrigation constraints (6.16%). The consistency of the AHP technique in the exploration of surface irrigation potential zones is evaluated by the consistency index at CI = 0.011 and confirmed the correctness of weights assigned for the individual key factor in the AHP. The accuracy of the potential zones generated in the AHP was evaluated with ground-truth points and a supervised LULC classification map. Moreover, a good agreement was made among the classes with the kappa index ( KI = 0.93). Therefore, the application of the MCA for the exploration of surface irrigation potential zones was successful, and the results of the study will be useful to strengthen the irrigation in the explored potential zones.

Land suitability assessment is an important stage in land use planning that guides the direction of optimal land use. The objective of this study was to select a suitable location for settlements in earthquake-prone areas using the integration of the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Geographical Information System (GIS). In total, six maps were considered to determine a suitable location for settlements, namely topography, soil, geology, land cover/land use, a regional spatial planning pattern map, and an earthquake vulnerability map. The results showed that in medium earthquake-prone areas, the suitable land area which are available for settlement was 90.25 km2 (46.36% of the total land area available – 194.68 km2). Whereas in highly earthquake-prone areas, the suitable and available land area was 528.11 km2 (70.25% of the total land area in the high vulnerability zone – 751.81 km2). The research proved that AHP and GIS integration is very effective and robust for mapping land suitability in earthquake-prone areas. The results of the analysis can be used by planners to prioritize settlement development in the Sukabumi regency. The methodology developed is recommended to be applied in selecting locations for settlements in other parts of Indonesia.

The main focus of this paper is to propose a method for prioritizing knowledge and technology factor of firms towards sustainable competitive advantage. The data has been gathered and analyzed from two high tech start-ups in which technology and knowledge play major role in company’s success. The analytical hierarchy model (AHP) is used to determine competitive priorities of the firms. Then knowledge and technology part of sense and respond questionnaire is used to calculate the variability coefficient i.e. the uncertainty caused by technology and knowledge factor. The proposed model is tested in terms of two start-ups. Based on the initial calculation of uncertainties, some improvement plan is proposed and the method is applied again to see if the uncertainty of knowledge and technology decreases. In both cases, the proposed model helped to have a clear and precise improvement plan and led in reduction of uncertainty.

Successful mine planning is necessary for the sustainability of mining activities. Since this process depends on many criteria, it can be considered a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem. In this study, an integrated MCDM method based on the combination of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the technique for order of preference by similarity to the ideal solution (TOPSIS) is proposed to select the optimum mine planning in open-pit mines. To prove the applicability of the proposed method, a case study was carried out. Firstly, a decision-making group was created, which consists of mining, geology, planning engineers, investors, and operators. As a result of studies performed by this group, four main criteria, thirteen sub-criteria, and nine mine planning alternatives were determined. Then, AHP was applied to determine the relative weights of evaluation criteria, and TOPSIS was performed to rank the mine planning alternatives. Among the alternatives evaluated, the alternative with the highest net present value was selected as the optimum mine planning alternative. It has been determined that the proposed integrated AHP-TOPSIS method can significantly assist decision-makers in the process of deciding which of the few mine planning alternatives should be implemented in open-pit mines.