Identifying suitable sites for urban, industrial, and tourist development is important, especially in areas with increasing population and limited land availability. Kharga Oasis, Egypt, stands out as a promising area for such development, which can help reduce overcrowding in the Nile Valley and Delta. However, soil and various environmental factors can affect the suitability of civil engineering projects. This study used Geographic Information Systems (GISs) and a multi-criteria decision-making approach to assess the suitability of Kharga Oasis for construction activities. Geotechnical parameters were obtained from seismic velocity data, including Poisson’s ratio, stress ratio, concentration index, material index, N-value, and foundation-bearing capacity. A comprehensive analysis of in situ and laboratory-based geological and geotechnical data from 24 boreholes examined soil plasticity, water content, unconfined compressive strength, and consolidation parameters. By integrating geotechnical, geomorphological, geological, environmental, and field data, a detailed site suitability map was created using the analytic hierarchy process to develop a weighted GIS model that accounts for the numerous elements influencing civil project design and construction. The results highlight suitable sites within the study area, with high and very high suitability classes covering 56.87% of the land, moderate areas representing 27.61%, and unsuitable areas covering 15.53%. It should be noted that many settlements exist in highly vulnerable areas, emphasizing the importance of this study. This model identifies areas vulnerable to geotechnical and geoenvironmental hazards, allowing for early decision-making at the beginning of the planning process and reducing the waste of effort. The applied model does not only highlight suitable sites in the Kharga Oasis, Egypt, but, additionally, it provides a reproducible method for efficiently assessing land use suitability in other regions with similar geological and environmental conditions around the world.

Egypt has adopted long-term strategies for urbanizing new cities across the country for resolving the overwhelming problem of overcrowded cities. New Mallawi is an example of such new cities. Egypt is occasionally being shaken by big-sized earthquakes such as the destructive 1754 local Cairo event and the strong ( 1995) Gulf of Aqaba earthquake; therefore, the buildings need to be designed to withstand the shaking of future damaging events. The hazard model of this research is based on an up-to-date catalogue of earthquakes. To obtain realistic results, lateral changes in soil characteristics are considered through using the parameter of average shear-wave velocity in near-surface layers. In addition, different state-of-the-art formulations of declustering temporal and spatial windows are used to represent the epistemic uncertainty in earthquake recurrence functions. Moreover, a set of ground motion models is used for better consideration of the uncertainty of the empirical estimates, and uncertainty in maximum earthquake size is treated. The resulting earthquake shaking is rather low, and the observed variability is affected by lateral changes in soil properties. Various hazard levels are investigated for reaching a better earthquake-resistant design that accounts for damaging earthquakes of hypothetically long return periods. This is done in an attempt to examine low-probability hazards after what was observed in the 2023 Turkey earthquake. The obtained results can be used for urban planning and risk mitigation at the New Mallawi city.