Improving the Ecological and Aesthetic Functions of Urban River Valley Landscapes by Application of Analytical Hierarchy Process (Case Study: Kaan River Valley Tehran- Iran)

In order to minimize visual impacts and to achieve sustainable development in urban river valleys, ecological and aesthetic criteria should be considered. To achieve this goal, uses of analytical hierarchy process for pair wise comparison of alternatives and quantifying the quality jurisdiction was proposed. This research was undertaken for part of Kaan River- valley in Tehran as case study. At first, ecological and aesthetic criteria that affect the continuity of ecological functions of urban river valley were identified. Data related to these criteria were gathered or in some cases produced. In order to determine the relative importance of these criteria in visual assessment, environmental designers and landscape architects and urban designer's views collected from a questionnaire that was designed for this aim. These views were used in pair wise comparison method to determine weight of these criteria. On the other hand, three options considered in related to the case study include: maintain the status quo, proposed plan of Tehran municipality and proposed plan by researcher based on ecological and aesthetic criteria. In order to determine the best option, expert's views collected from questionnaire analytical hierarchy process was used to determine optimum option in comparison with others. Results indicated that the proposed plan by researcher which was designed using ecological and aesthetic criteria is more environmentally sound than the others. According to result of this investigation, applying AHP method in visual impact assessment is recommended to quantify the quality criteria.