Abstract: A suitability evaluation system for shallow confined water source heat pump in Xi’an is constructed in consideration of thirteen factors including water abundance, reinjection efficiency, hydraulic conductivity, and aquifer thickness. The weight of each factor is determined by using analytic hierarchy process method and Gini coefficient method. In addition, GIS technology is employed to build up a two-level evaluation model for spatial analysis, and the suitability of the study area is divided into four levels. Results reveal that the area of favorable region for constructing water source heat pump system in the study area is 1144.32 km²,the area of suitable region is 1393.57 km², the area of moderately suitable region is 762.48 km², and the area of unsuitable region is 6807.63 km². The total area of suitable region is 3300.36 km², accounting for 76.98% of the human activity area, indicating that shallow confined water source heat pump has a good prospect in Xi’an city.

Key words: groundwater source heat pump, analytic hierarchy process, weight determination according to Gini coefficient, GIS technology, suitability evaluation, Xi’an city