Ordered weighted averaging with fuzzy quantifiers: GIS-based multicriteria evaluation for land-use suitability analysis

The objective of this paper is to incorporate the concept of fuzzy (linguistic) quantifiers into the GIS-based land suitability analysis via ordered weighted averaging (OWA). OWA is a multicriteria evaluation procedure (or combination operator). The nature of the OWA procedure depends on some parameters, which can be specified by means of fuzzy (linguistic) quantifiers. By changing the parameters, OWA can generate a wide range of decision strategies or scenarios. The quantifier-guided OWA procedure is illustrated using land-use suitability analysis in a region of Mexico.