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The exclusion areas are defined by the user by inputting any number of vector (points, polygons) or raster data sets. Typical exclusion zones can represent military areas, wetlands, private lands, etc. The user can also define a buffer (in kilometers) outside of the exclusion area that will be taken into consideration for the exclusion. This is especially useful when the user wants to avoid locating a new facility less than, say, 5km away of existing facilities (a constraint in Burkina Faso for example).
Suitability outside the exclusions areas
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The decision on the factors being included follows the consultation process that took place in summer 2015 when we gathered needs and ideas (from health staff from WHO and other organizations) on how to compute site suitability for the location of new health facilities.
Once the exclusion zone has been applied, non-excluded areas must be prioritized following the user-defined combination of suitability factors. This model can include any combination of the following factors to come up with a suitability index for each non-excluded cell in the study area:
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For each of the suitability factors, the user must define whether higher values are more suitable or less suitable. By default, the relative weights among the model factors is equal, but the user can change these relative weights, giving more importance to one or several of the factors.
The additive model[1] then model then combines the factors as defined in part (3) of the equation below, and generates the raster suitability map.
The standardization procedure is taken from : http://support.esri.com/cn/knowledgebase/techarticles/detail/30961
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- The maximum computing limit set by the user.
- The number of desired new facilities.[1] Eastman R. (1999) Multi-criteria evaluation and GIS. Chapter 35 In: Longley PA, Goodchild MF, Maguire DJ, Rhind DW (eds) Geographical information systems, Wiley, New York. pp493-502.
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