GIS and Remote Sensing application for Ecotourism facility development site suitability analysis: The case of Bale Mountains National Park, Ethiopia
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Date
2020-11
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
There is georeferenced data and information gap in protected areas tourism facility
developments site identification so these studies aimed at identify and prioritize suitable sit for
ecotourism facility development in Bale Mountains National Park (BMNP), using multi criteria
decision making (MCDM) analytical hierarchical process (AHP) and by applying Geographic
Information System (GIS) technique. Therefore, Ecotourism facility development suitable sites
were identified by seating criteria. For this study, five criteria were identified to evaluate
suitability of sites, based on literature review, tourism master plans and regulations and experts’
opinions. The identified criteria were slope, land use/land cover, elevation, distance to river and
road, where weights of the criteria were determined using the pair-wise comparison technique of
AHP. The site suitability model and suitability maps were generated in ArcMap 10.7.1 using Geo
processing model builder and subsequently, the land suitability map of ecotourism was created
using GIS spatial analyst weighted overlay tool.
The degree of suitability was classified as highly suitable, moderately suitable, marginally
suitable and not suitable for ecotourism facility development. In general, the result of the land
suitability analysis for ecotourism facility development in this study yielded four suitability
classes, ranging from class 1 to 4. Class 1 represent the highly suitable areas which covers 1.6%
(35.6 km2
), Class 2 the moderately suitable areas make up about 26.2% (571.6 km2
), 3rd class is
marginally suitable areas which covers 52.5% (1143.8 km2
), and not suitable area grouped
under class 4 and account for 19.7 % (427.9 km2
) of the study area. From the analysis, one can
learn that geographical information system and multi-criteria decision making framework can
be used as a solution for a complicated decisions making in ecotourism development and for
proper site selection of land use planning in protected areas including BMNP.
Description
Keywords
Ecotourism, Multi-criteria decision making, analytical hierarchical process, suitability and GIS, RS.