Ecological Capability Evaluation in Dehloran for Ecotourism Development

Dehloran is located in the south-eastern Ilam and due to attractive natural, cultural, historical and national natural monuments including three hot water springs, Khofash cave and bitumen springs has great potentials for ecotourism development. In this study, we evaluated the ecological capability of the area for ecotourism through AHP and TOPSIS methods. We determined 16 criteria and 10 constraints and then standardized map of these criteria using Boolean and fuzzy logic. We overlaid the raster layers and based on the suitability of the area divided it into three classes for Dehloran. Finally, the results of AHP method indicated that the central part has most polygons with highest capability for ecotourism. Then we have Zarinabad and finally Mosian which come in the next ranks. The final map indicated that more than 78% of the area has capability for ecotourism. Also in TOPSIS method, the first to third areas were the central part with score 0.910, Zarinabad with 0.241 and then Mosian with 0.037. The results of the two methods are consistent with each other showing their reasonable accuracy.