GIS Based Multi-Criteria Decision Making for Identification of Important Plant Areas: A Case Study in Johor, Malaysia

Important Plant Areas (IPA) is a concept developed by Plantlife International to identify sites of exceptional botanical importance for conservation priority. The three main criteria for IPA are presence of threatened species, exceptional botanical richness and threatened habitats. Studies have shown that scoring method based on expert judgement is widely used in IPA identification as it is the easiest to understand and implement. However, reported drawbacks were uncertainty in score judgement and effect of the weighted score on each criterion was not understood. Therefore, a robust scoring system was needed to overcome this obscurity. The current study utilized Kepong Herbarium records, GIS-based multi-criteria decision making and analytical hierarchy process to identify IPA in the state of Johor, Malaysia. These techniques were considered to be effective tools in providing decision support for spatial planning aimed for plant conservation in Malaysia.