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Refugee camps are not easily welcomed by local communities. The purpose of this paper is to outline a structured approach to support the decision-making process for siting refugee camps in mainland Greece using multiple criteria, including local opposition. A suitability analysis generates a list of potential sites and a multiple criteria evaluation is applied. The motivation is the development of a methodology that can support choices and policies regarding the refugee camps siting problem, incorporating the need to address local opposition.

The proposed methodology combines geographic information systems (GIS) with multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques. These are used to develop a location classification and ranking model based on related criteria and subcriteria, attributes and weights. The region of Peloponnese in Greece is selected as a case study to validate the approach.

The lack of predefined candidate sites for refugee camps necessitates, initially, tackling a site search problem to generate a pool of potential sites through a suitability analysis. Subsequently, using the GIS the pool yields a subset of potential sites, satisfying all the criteria to setup a refugee camp. Through the current analysis the suitability of the single existing refugee camp site in Peloponnese can be evaluated. Finally, a “with and without” analysis, excluding the social criterion, depicts the changes in the candidate sites pool and their scores.

There is a lack of relevant literature taking into account the local opposition or sociopolitical implications as decision criteria. The selection of the appropriate criteria is a complex process that involves the cooperation of many experts. The main criteria, subcriteria and their attributes were determined according to existing literature and authors' informed judgment.

The proposed methodology can help decision-makers to setup a decision-making system and process for identifying refugee camps' sites using multiple criteria, including local opposition.