A Geographic Information System and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis in Proposing New Recreational Park Sites in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Nowadays, human life is being sustained by recreation and leisure, which play an important role in the human lifestyle. Urban areas with recreational facilities such as green spaces attract the dwellers to pass their leisure time in such spaces where they can enjoy the benefits of nature. In any modern university like Universitit Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), recreational activities are very important activities that can improve the quality of students’ lives and the learning environment as a whole. The recreational parks in UTM are not favourable in relation to their distances and locations from the students’ residential zones. It becomes necessary to investigate suitable locations for a new recreational park in order to encourage students’ participation in the activities of passive recreation. Therefore, this research was conducted on the UTM students with the aim of identifying whether the current recreational parks are efficient in relation to distances, locations, and facilities. Field survey has been conducted, which helped the researchers in coming up with some set of criteria. GIS tools were used in creating different datasets of the study area and the set of criteria generated were integrated into the Multi criteria Decision Process (MCDP). Pair-wise comparison method of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to evaluate the criterions obtained, and weightings were assigned and calculated. The results of the weightings obtained from this method finally identified the most suitable sites to locate the proposed recreational park.