Site selection of tourism village in Palangdareh protected area, Qom Province.

Abstract:

Along with the population growth, life pressure in cities compels people to search for privacy in nature. Hence in national parks and protected areas the number of tourists is increasing steadily. Since the protection and ecotourism are effective partners in national parks and protected areas, thus promoting tourism, is a strategy for financial autonomy, support for protection and facilitate management tool in the protected areas. The relationship between protected areas and tourism is as old as the history of the area. Protected areas need tourism and tourism also needs them. Although this relationship is complex and sometimes contradictory, but the tourism has always an important role in the creation and management of protected areas. In this regard it should be noted that implementation tourism activities without the planning and management and without measure the ecological potential of the region could be have a negative effect on tourism experiences and more importantly, on the quality of protected areas. Therefore determining the appropriate sites for tourism development using potential of the areas could be one of the most effective ways to reduce the negative impacts in protected areas. This study was done by defining a Conceptual models and multi-criteria assessment methods such as weighted linear combination (WLC), Boolean logic and analytic network process (ANP) and many software such as Arc GIS 10.2 and Supper Decision and IDRISI Selva that was done to determine suitable zones for tourism village in the protected area of an Palang Darreh. Palang Darreh protected area is located in the southwestern province of Qom. The criteria that were used to locate the tourist village are landscape, water, topography, environmental sensitivity, rock and soil and the access to the region. Palang Darreh newly protected area is located in the southwestern province of Qom. Measures affecting tourism village location that was used in this study, including landscape, water, topography, environmental sensitivity, stone and soil and the availability of the region. For these criteria were considered the thirteen sub-criteria that were mapping using Geographic Information System (GIS). The criteria and sub-criteria were defined with expert opinions as a network and were ranked using network analysis process. In this study, the highest score was given to water resources and topography. Before the layers, they were standardized with Boolean and fuzzy models and in the last step these layers were combined by using weighted linear combination and Boolean and land suitability for tourism village was obtained. Boolean method evaluated less suitable areas but evaluation with weighted linear combination (WLC) was obtained more areas. Another advantage of the WLC is classification of the results.