Application of Remote Sensing and Gis for Potential Ecotourism Site Selection an Addis Ababa and its Surroundings
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Date
2009-06
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Addis Ababa Universty
Abstract
Addis Ababa is the main get way into and out of the country; hence it receives many tourists.
Besides this, the contribution of the tourism industry as a source of revenue in general and
the contribution of ecotourism both as a source of revenue and as a means of environmental
sustainability in particular is low. Therefore, there is a strong need to studying ecotourism, as
part of an alternative form of tourism, for the growth of low impact tourism in the area and
for its natural ecosystem maintenance as well as for the benefit of local population.
Ecotourism can have many components that can broadly be categorized in to three: Natural,
Cultural and Educative components. The aim of this paper is thus to identify potentially
suitable sites for ecotourism in the surroundings of Addis Ababa City mainly based on the
Natural components of ecotourism. Seven factors, namely: Land use-land cover, Soil,
Elevation, Slope, Vegetation density, Temperature and Rainfall were considered to determine
the suitability of an area for ecotourism. More emphasis was given to the classification and
accuracy assessment of land use-land cover. The result, thus, showed that 84.96% overall
accuracy and 0.82 overall kappa statistics which indicates better classification. Using Multicriteria
evaluation, sites suitable for ecotourism were identified. The result showed that
highly suitable area accounts for 11 percent, moderately suitable area for 29 percent. Less
suitable and very less suitable area, on the other hand, accounts for 33 and 27 percent,
respectively. Large parts of the highly suitable areas lie in the Northern, Northwestern and
southwestern parts of the study area. Specifically, it includes areas such as ‘Suba Menagesha
Yemengist Den’, Wolmera Goro, area around Menagesh town, Menagesha Medhanealem,
Suba and Elala Gojo, some parts of Intoto, Legedadi, Mount Yerer and Mount Furi. Small
parts of the highly suitable areas, on the other hand, lie in the extreme parts of the
southeastern part of the study area. For the moderately suitable areas, except, for few that are
found in the southern parts of the study area, the rest are found nearby the highly suitable
areas. The least suitable areas are found dispersedly in all part of the study area. Very least
suitable areas, however, are rare in the Northern, North western and southwestern part of the
study area. The southern part of the study area is dominated by very least suitable areas.
Key words: Ecotourism, Multi-criteria evaluation, Remote Sensing and GIS
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Keywords
Ecotourism, Multi-criteria evaluation, Remote Sensing and GIS