**7.3 Land use suitability map**

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**Figure 5.**

*Slope map of the study area.*

*Location Analysis and Application of GIS in Site Suitability Study for Biogas Plant*

ArcGIS 10. The Slope command takes an input surface raster and calculates an output raster containing the slope at each cell, **Figure 5** shows the slope of the study area. The output slope raster is in percent (percent rise) as shown in the figure. The red color in the map represents areas in the study area that are less than 8%, thus they represent suitable locations to site biogas plant. Areas shown in the map within the range of 62–89% signifies high sloped areas, and should be avoided, this is of economic importance in siting and building of structures. Other land features such as hill-shade view for maximizing sunlight effect for increase in temperature for the biogas plant was created. Elevation layer was created from DEM to avoiding flood occurrence, all the layers was classified into 5 classes. The most suitable were sites with higher elevation, lower slope, and higher hill-view values. All the layers and land use layer obtained from Satellite imagery were overlaid using in ArcGIS using Weighted Overlay Tool. The result of such geospatial operation is the land use

The final suitability index map was obtained by overlaying the land use suitability map with the biomass spatial density layer. The output is shown in **Figure 6** below. The suitable areas were divided into 4 classes- the Most Suitable, Highly Suitable, Moderate Suitable and Not Suitable. **Figure 6** shows that the suitable sites are

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95508*

suitability map (not shown).

**7.4 Final suitability map**

The slope was derived from the digital elevation model of the study area. The slope of the study area was obtained through the slope function in spatial analyst tool in

**Figure 4.** *Biomass potential density of the study area.*

#### *Location Analysis and Application of GIS in Site Suitability Study for Biogas Plant DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95508*

ArcGIS 10. The Slope command takes an input surface raster and calculates an output raster containing the slope at each cell, **Figure 5** shows the slope of the study area.

The output slope raster is in percent (percent rise) as shown in the figure.

The red color in the map represents areas in the study area that are less than 8%, thus they represent suitable locations to site biogas plant. Areas shown in the map within the range of 62–89% signifies high sloped areas, and should be avoided, this is of economic importance in siting and building of structures. Other land features such as hill-shade view for maximizing sunlight effect for increase in temperature for the biogas plant was created. Elevation layer was created from DEM to avoiding flood occurrence, all the layers was classified into 5 classes. The most suitable were sites with higher elevation, lower slope, and higher hill-view values. All the layers and land use layer obtained from Satellite imagery were overlaid using in ArcGIS using Weighted Overlay Tool. The result of such geospatial operation is the land use suitability map (not shown).
