Optimizing Mini Dam Placement for Sustainable Water Management in FUTA: A GIS-MCDA Approach

Addressing the increasing demand for water resources at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) due to the growing population requires a data-driven solution. This study determined the suitable locations for the siting of mini-dams as an alternative solution to the problem of water scarcity in FUTA using a Geographical Information Systems (GIS)-based Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) approach by integrating five thematic factors: drainage density, slope, elevation, land cover and soil texture. Preference values were assigned to the criteria based on their importance to a dam. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to assign weights to these criteria, and they were combined using a weighted sum to produce a mini dam suitability map within the study area. The suitable areas were divided into five classes: highly suitable (9%), suitable (18%), marginally suitable (30%), least suitable (26%) and not suitable (17%). The suitability map was validated against the locations of existing dams in the study area. This study contributes to the efforts to manage water resources for a growing population in FUTA and to evaluate the GIS-AHP approach for dam siting for a small study area.