Determination of shoreline sensitivity to oil spills by use of GIS and fuzzy model. Case study - The coastal areas of Caspian Sea in north of Iran

By attention to this matter that the Caspian sea is very important area because of its economical, environmental, fishery parameters and by its high length it is always exposed to the negative effects of oil spills, so determination of its sensitive coastal areas to oil spills according to effective criteria and presentation of some methods to develop the models much necessary. In this paper, a structured GIS-based fuzzy multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) model is applied through combining the concepts of fuzzy set theory, hierarchical structure analysis, and the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) environment, then the model of protecting decision system is presented to make the preference for the sensitive coastal areas of Mazandaran province (North of Iran) to oil spills. For creating this model, at first the hazard line (affected coastal areas to oil spills) and effective criteria (physical parameters, biological and socio-economic resources) are recognized according literature and expert's opinion and thematic maps are developed in GIS. Then, the processed layers are weighted, scored and combined in a fuzzy decision making environment and sensitivity maps are prepared, it helps the managers for determining and recognizing the priorities so by recognition of the resources which are exposed to the danger and protection of more sensitive areas is done as soon as possible. The paper shows that the applied fuzzy method is an effective method to evaluate shoreline sensitivity area to oil spills. Also the results of case study shows the most shoreline of Mazandaran province are medium and high sensitive and regions which are near Gorgan bay are very high sensitive to oil spills. Crown Copyright (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.