Multi Criteria Evaluation MCE with Analytical Hierarchy Process

making requires availability of data, and tools to analyze data to be integrated in complex information systems. A Geographic Information System GIS is integrates hardware, software, and data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information. GIS allows us to view, understand, question, interpret, and visualize data in many ways that reveal relationships, patterns, and trends in the form of maps, globes, reports, and charts Wyatt, 2003. A GIS application is automated process that generates a spatially oriented product or result needed by user. GIS application may include: map update or map production, data query and display, spatial analysis, or other processes that use GIS software and geographic data Ogaja, 2011. Currently, the application of GIS for agricultural purposes has been widely developed, GIS is becoming a more utilized business management tool for farmers because of current trends that will continue to the future, GIS will see improvement in hardware and software, changes in the way companies market and communicate to their clients, development of full-services precision agriculture providers, internet- based data access, and the increased use of GIS to ensure environmental compliance Pick, et al 2005. The methodical approach to a GIS system design includes a GIS need assessment and system architecture design. The system architecture design is based on user workflow requirement identified in the GIS needs. The most effective system design approach consider user need and system architecture constraints throughout the design process Ogaja, 2011.

2.5 Multi Criteria Evaluation MCE with Analytical Hierarchy Process

AHP Land use change is often modeled as function of socio-economic and bio- physical variables that act as e.g. climatic factors such as rainfall, temperature, humidity and topographic variables such as altitude, slope and proximate or accessibility factors e.g. distance to roads, distance to settlements and distance to water etc. Multi Criteria Decision Making MCDM or Multi Criteria Evaluation MCE problems involve a set of alternative that are evaluated on the basis of a set of evaluation criteria Jacoba et.al. 2008. Using MCE, different factors or change drivers can be combined using appropriate weights assigned to the factors. The result of such a combination is numerical value map representing the land Table 2 Scale of preference between two elements Saaty, 1991 Intensity of Importance Description Explanation 1 Equally Preferred Two activities contributes equally to the objective 3 Moderately Preferred Experience and judgment slightly favor one activity over another 5 Strongly Preferred Experience and judgment strongly or essentially favor one activity over another 7 Very strongly Preferred An activity is strongly favored over another and its dominance demonstrated in practice 9 Extreme Preferred The evidence favoring one activity over another is the highest degree possible of affirmation 2,4,6,8 Intermediate values Used to represent compromise between the preferences listed above Reciprocals Reciprocals for inverse comparison The pair-wise comparison generates a matrix of relative rankings for each level of hierarchy. The numbers of matrices depend on the number elements at each level. The order of the matrix at each level depends on the number of element at the lower level that links to it. After all matrices are developed and all pair-wise comparison are obtained, eigenvectors or the relative weights, and the maximum eigen-value b Compute the consistency index for each matrix of order n by the formula: =

2.6 Cellular Automata CA Model