Geothermal prospectivity mapping using GIS-based Ordered Weighted Averaging approach: A case study in Japan’s Akita and Iwate provinces

•We used OWA to generate geothermal prospectivity maps.•The concept of risk is incorporated into geothermal prospectivity mapping.•We developed prospectivity maps for Akita and Iwate provinces. The exploration of geothermal regions is the first step for the use of these resources. This paper attempts to incorporate the concept of risk into the GIS-based analysis for generating geothermal prospectivity maps via Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) approach. The use of OWA-based approach provides a model that generates geothermal prospectivity maps with different pessimistic or optimistic strategies. The results indicate that the values of wells percentages in high favorite areas for the most pessimistic and optimistic strategies are 85% and 100%, respectively. Regarding the prediction rate, the results show that the rate for the most pessimistic and optimistic strategies are 18.55 and 1.18, respectively.