Home/Solutions/Site suitability and site selection
Where is the best place for it?
Site suitability analysis with GIS answers one question for a whole region at once: where does this project fit? We turn your siting rules into map layers, agree the weights with you, take out the land that is ruled out and rank what is left, so the shortlist rests on evidence rather than on the first site someone found.
Every siting decision mixes rules that cannot bend with preferences that can. A protected area or a steep slope rules land out; distance to the grid, to roads or to customers only makes a site better or worse. A suitability study keeps the two apart: constraints remove land, factors score it, and the weights say how much each factor matters to you.
The method is multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). It works the same way for a solar park, a wind farm, battery storage, a landfill or a new store, because only the criteria change, not the logic.
Inputs
We list every rule that decides a site and find the data for each: slope from an elevation model, land cover from satellite imagery, protected areas, distance to roads and the grid, parcels and your own data. Each layer is cleaned, brought onto one grid and checked before it enters the model.
Analysis
Each factor is scaled to the same range and weighted, often by pairwise comparison (AHP), in a working session with your team. The weighted overlay gives every cell a score, and a sensitivity test shows whether the ranking holds when a weight moves.
Result
Scores are grouped into classes from very low to very high suitability, and the highest-scoring areas become candidate sites, each with its area and the reasons behind its score. In Mozambique we used five classes on a 30 m grid.
Every cell classed from very low to very high, with the excluded land shown.
Candidate sites with their score, their area and the criteria behind it.
The land ruled out, and why, layer by layer.
The model and its weights, so a new rule gives a new map.
What we did, the data we used and what the result cannot tell you.
Limits
A suitability map ranks land on the data available; it does not replace a site visit, ownership checks or a planning decision, and coarse layers can miss small obstacles.
EnergySolar parks, wind farms and battery storage, ranked by resource, slope, land cover and distance to the grid. 
Carbon, Forests & EnvironmentLand suitability and zoning for ARR and REDD+ projects, and sites for waste facilities. 
Real Estate & DevelopmentLand for residential, commercial and industrial development, scored on zoning, flood zones, schools and the market. 
Retail & Market IntelligenceCandidate store sites scored and ranked on demand, competitors and access. A multi-criteria analysis that scores every part of an area against your siting rules. Constraints remove the land that cannot be used, weighted factors rank the rest, and the result is a suitability map and a shortlist of sites, each with the reasons for its score.
You do, with us. We propose criteria and weights for the project type, then agree them with your team in a working session. The weights are written into the report, so anyone can see why a site ranks where it does.
Yes. We deliver the model, not only the map. When a rule changes, such as a new setback distance or a new data layer, the model runs again over the whole area and the ranking updates.
Any size, from one parcel to a whole region. Regional screening runs on coarser layers to rule land out quickly; the shortlisted sites are then checked again with finer data.
Your siting rules and anything you already hold: parcels, surveys, grid data or a list of sites to compare. We bring the open and licensed data, such as elevation models, satellite land cover, protected areas and roads, and say up front where a layer is missing or coarse.
Tell us the area, the decision and the deadline. We reply within 24 hours, from the person who will deliver the work.
Based in Bucharest, working with clients on five continents.
