MULTI-CRITERION GEOPHYSICAL ASSESSMENT OF EARTH RESOURCES AND FORMATION OF AN INTEGRAL INDEX

Abstract

This article develops the scientific and methodological foundations of multi -criteria assessment of the geospatial state of land resources, combining ecological, soil-ameliorative, hydrological, geomorphological and anthropogenic indicators of various nature into a single analytical system, and forming an integrated geospatial index. The relevance of the study is determined by the need for a comprehensive assessment of territorial differences arising in the process of land resource use, soil degradation, salinization, erosion, water supply imbalance, land cover change, and increasing anthropogenic pressure. The research methodology is based on the integration of geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing (RS), multi- criteria decision-making (MCDA), Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), entropy-based weighting and weighted aggregation methods. In the proposed approach, the stages of reducing the initial indicators to a single dimensionless scale, determining their significance, integrating spatial layers, and dividing the results into territorial classes are consistently carried out. Also, the issues of assessing the reliability of the integral index, checking its sensitivity to weight coefficients, and validating it based on field observations are discussed. The proposed methodological approach serves to rationally use land resources, identify areas at high risk of degradation, improve territorial land development projects, and organize ecological monitoring on a scientific basis.