Site suitability evaluation for ecotourism using MCDM methods and GIS: Case study- Lorestan province, Iran

On based environment, ecotourism led to preserve the environment and on based economic, ecotourism led to dynamical economic in local association by creating a labor and an income. On this base, recognize the sufficiency and procedures of development the nature in different geographic regions were important. This study compared the two methods of GIS-based Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) in evaluation of the ecotourism potential in Khorram-Abad country. First, in this process the criteria and sub-criteria were determined and by using the Delphi technique and expert's knowledge the weights of criteria were appointed. Then, required maps were produced and integrated with corresponding weights and ecotourism potential map of study area was produced in both methods of AHP and FAHP. The result of study showed that study area have high potential for ecotourism and in each produced map from two methods of AHP and FAHP, more than 45 percentage of study area had excellent and good classes potential.

Key words: Ecotourism, Analytic Hierarchy Process, Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process, GIS, Iran.