GIS-assisted site selection for artificial reefs

Abstract

Five geographic information system (GIS) grid themes, water depth, bottom type, topographic slope, distance to coast and distance to fishing ports, were adapted to evaluate and select a site for artificial reef deployment in I-Lan Bay off north-eastern Taiwan. From AHP (analytic hierarchy process) analysis, the weights of suitability of the five GIS grid themes were 0.416, 0.141, 0.331, 0.074, and 0.038, respectively. The results show that water depth is the most important factor in selecting a site for an artificial reef. Using ArcView, a GIS software package, a suitability map was made based on the selected grid themes. The suitable sites for artificial reef deployment identified by the GIS method corresponded to the sites selected using the traditional non-GIS approach. Based on the individual GIS grid themes, the GIS software and AHP method can be integrated to select objectively the optimal sites for artificial reef deployment.