GIS-based multicriteria decision analysis: a survey of the literature

The integration of GIS and multicriteria decision analysis has attracted significant interest over the last 15 years or so. This paper surveys the GIS-based multicriteria decision analysis (GIS-MCDA) approaches using a literature review and classification of articles from 1990 to 2004. An electronic search indicated that over 300 articles appeared in refereed journals. The paper provides taxonomy of those articles and identifies trends and developments in GISMCDA.