2.1. Multicriteria-Spatial Decision Support Systems
Multicriteria-Spatial Decision Support Systems (Malczewski, 1999 ) combine Geographic Information Systems and Multicriteria Decision Aiding in order to provide a collection of methods and tools for transforming and integrating geographic data (map criteria) and Decision Maker’s preferences and uncertainties (value judgments) to obtain information for decision-making and an overall assessment of the decision alternatives.
Whereas Decision Support Systems and GIS can work independently to solve some simple problems, many complex situations demand the two systems to be integrated in order to provide better solutions (Li et al., 2004). Following this reasoning, it can be stated that the development of Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS) has been associated with the need to expand the GIS system capabilities for tackling complex, not well-defined, spatial decision problems (Densham and Goodchild, 1989).
Over the years there has been considerable growth in the research, development and applications of SDSS in order to include different functions. The field has now grown to the point that it is made up of many threads with different, but related names, such as collaborative SDSS, group SDSS, environmental DSS and SDSS based on spatial knowledge and on expert systems (Malczewski, 2006a).