Prioritization Criteria of the Determining the Potential Forest Management Plan VAZ2 Series for Ecotourism Sustainable Development using Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Techniques (Entropy and TOPSIS)

Ecotourism is a new trend in the tourism industry that introduces landscapes and beautiful scenery of nature as its attractions. Therefore, it is essential to consider importance of its role in environmental preservation to achieve a sustainable development. Forest management plan VAZ2 Series with an area of 2094 hectares and part of the watershed 49 in the north of Iran, plays an important role in this field with its rich ecotourism abilities and attractions. The purpose of this research is the priority of the criteria for determining the potential forest management plan VAZ2 Series for ecotourism sustainable development using multi-criteria decision-making techniques (Entropy and TOPSIS). In this study, Delphi group decision making method was used to determine the criteria for ecotourism sustainable development. Also, prioritization of the criteria was evaluated by using multi-criteria decision-making techniques Entropy and TOPSIS. Based on the results of Delphi questionnaires, 10 criteria were determined for ecotourism sustainable development of forest management plan VAZ2 Series. These criteria included slope, direction, elevation, soil logy, geology, road, typology, afforestation, view shed and hydrology. The results of weighting the criteria using the Entropy technique showed that slope with weight (0/168668), view shed with weight (0/092607), hydrology with weight (0/092478), road with weight (0.092437) have the highest weight among other criteria respectively. Also, the results of prioritization of the criteria using TOPSIS technique showed that geology, slope, and elevation, have higher priority compared to other criteria. Then, the layers were merged to creating plan VAZ2 Series ecological capability map. Finally, their outputs were prepared as capability maps in four classes including very inappropriate, inappropriate, appropriate and very suitable for ecological evaluation of VAZ2 Series. The results showed that 40% of this Series was in suitable class (837.6 ha), 30% in very suitable class (628.2 ha), 20% in very inadequate class (418.8 ha) and 10% is located on unsuitable class (209.4 ha). The results of this study indicated that the VAZ2 Series forestry plan has the potential to provide ecotourism services.