Geometric average of spatial evidence data layers: A GIS-based multi-criteria decision-making approach to mineral prospectivity mapping

Techniques for GIS-based multicriteria decision-making (GIS-MCDM), like mineral prospectivity mapping (MPM), are concerned with combining information from several criteria into a single evaluation model to solve certain problems in the fields of geosciences. In this paper, we introduce the geometric average method for MPM, as a GIS-MCDM approach, and demonstrate its advantage over the expected value MPM method. The comparative analysis shows that the geometric average MPM method yields better prediction of mineral prospectivity and it overcomes the limitation of the expected value method in terms of using spatial evidence values with the same unit.