Bridging policy and space: A GIS-AHP framework for sustainable industrial land-use governance in secondary cities—evidence from Adama, Ethiopia

Rapid urbanization and government-initiated industrialization processes in Ethiopia are creating unprecedented land-use pressures on secondary cities where rates of industrialization far surpass spatial planning. This research aims to bridge this spatial governance challenge by developing a policy-oriented spatial decision support system for the suitability evaluation of industrial land use in Adama City, Ethiopia. The research methodology adopted for this research is a Geographic Information System (GIS) integrated with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to evaluate six relevant criteria for land suitability evaluation, including road networks, water supply lines, industries, residential areas, land use/cover, and slope. Weighted overlay analysis indicated that the resultant suitability raster had high spatial clustering characteristics, as evidenced by Moran's I = 0.402, with p-values significantly less than 0.001. The spatial pattern was refined through aggregation techniques and minimum area filtering to yield 34 compact sites ready for development, totaling 383 ha. Sensitivity analysis was conducted by varying the three most influential criteria by ±10% and ±20%, which indicated that the spatial pattern was robust with Moran's I ranging from 0.374 to 0.396 under all scenarios. Results indicated that access to infrastructure services, i.e., roads (33.0%) and piped water supply (17.5%), was the most critical factor that determines the suitability of land for industrialization. In view of these findings, an infrastructure capacity-led zoning policy is recommended to ensure long-term sustainability while minimizing risks associated with financial and environmental sustainability. This framework provides a replicable model for translating spatial evidence into actionable policy, bridging the critical gap between industrial strategy and local land-use governance in rapidly urbanizing secondary cities.