Abstract
Dehloran is located on the southeastern Ilam Province. It has a great potential for tourism development due to natural, cultural and historical attractions including national natural monuments as well as three rare phenomena of hot springs, bat cave and bitumen springs. In the current study, TOPSIS and AHP methods were applied to conduct the land capability evaluation study. A total number of 16 criteria and 10 constraints were initially determined and then; each map-layer was standardized using fuzzy and Boolean logics. In order to zoning the study area in terms of ecotourism suitability degrees, the raster layers derived from each environment were overlaid. Based on the obtained suitability degrees, the study area was categorized into three classes and final land capability evaluation map of Dehloran County was prepared. The results obtained from AHP Method indicated that Markazi District has the highest number of polygons with high suitability. The districts of Zarrinabad and Mousian are rated in the next priorities, respectively. According TOPSIS Technique, Markazi with a score of 0.910, Zarinabad with a score of 0.241 and Mousian with a score of 0.037 allocated themselves the first to third ranks, respectively. This shows that the results of the two methods are consistent with each other.
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Jozi, S.A., Majd, N.M. Ecological Land Capability Evaluation of Dehloran County in Order to Ecotourism Development. J Indian Soc Remote Sens 43, 571–581 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-014-0427-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-014-0427-z