An assessment tool for land reuse with artificial intelligence method

This paper focuses on land resource consumption due to urban sprawl. Special attention is given to shrinking regions, characterized by economic decline, demographic change, and high unemployment rates. In these regions, vast terrain is abandoned and falls derelict. A geographic information system (GIS) based multi-criteria decision tool is introduced to determine the reuse potential of derelict terrain, to investigate the possible reuse options (housing, business and trade, industry, services, tourism and leisure, and re-greening), and to visualize the best reuse options for groups of sites on a regional scale. Achievement functions for attribute data are presented to assess the best reuse options based on a multi-attribute technique. The assessment tool developed is applied to a model region in Germany. The application of the assessment tool enables communities to become aware of their resources of derelict land and their reuse potential.