Application of grey GIS filtration to identify the potential area for cement plants in South Khorasan Province, Eastern Iran

Cement-based materials are fundamental resources used to in construction. The increase in requests for and consumption of cement products, especially in Iran, indicates that more cement plants should be equipped. This study developed a geographical information system using pairwise comparison based on grey numbers to identify potential sites in which to set up cement plants. A group of five experts compared the effective criteria using the data for South Khorasan province. After filtering numerous sites, an area with potential locations for construction of a cement plant has been identified. The selection of a potential area considered the distance to mines, access roads, gas source, and faults. Classification maps were surveyed for land use, pedology, and topography. A potential area was resulted in the north of the province based on the importance weights of 0.307, 0.301, 0.17, 0.087, 0.082, 0.04, and 0.032 for the criteria of land use, proximity to mines, proximity to access roads, proximity to gas substations, topography, pedology, and proximity to faults, respectively.