The Potential for Ecotourism Sarigol National Park and Preserve Using GIS

Tourism development in protected areas creates many benefits for area management as well as the visitors. However, it should be considered that tourism without appropriate planning and management and assessment of the area’s potential can result in negative impacts on the protected area and tourists’ experiences. The aim of this study was to identify suitable areas with potential for the development of ecotourism in protected areas. Sarigol National Park and protected area as one of the protected area in IRAN, involve considerable tourism attractions, so it should be carefully planned for ecotourism development.
Since the objective of this research is to identify and zoning suitable areas for ecotourism, analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and GIS technology have been used to determine suitable areas for tourism. The factors used include topography, climate, wildlife habitat, and soil and vegetation type and vegetation density. The ecological map of the region was produced by AHP and the Fuzzy-AHP method by considering these factors. Also, the attraction map area was obtained by GPS points gathering and weighting through a questionnaire and GIS software. Then, by comparing this map and ecological potential map, the appropriate areas have been zoned for ecotourism.  
The results show that the areas with very high potential are located in the parts including Northwest, Northeast and Southwest. Areas with high power also include areas such as Easy Waterfall, Esfarayen Dam, Ganjdan Valley and Bidvaz Valley. In the attraction map, the most attractiveness is related to the Northern parts and some Southern parts of the region, such as Easy Waterfall. Comparing the ecological potential map and the attractiveness map, it was found that most of the areas that have high attractiveness also have high potential for ecotourism development. Therefore, it illustrated that there is ability to develop ecotourism in the Northern region of the National Park, Easy waterfall and some areas of national park. These areas also have high ecological power and are attractive for ecotourism development.
Discussion and The development of tourism in Sarigol Protected Area is in the interest of the region and the environment and promotes the level of protection and sustainable use of talents. But in protected areas, protection should be the first priority of management, and other permitted uses, including tourism, can only be done if they do not conflict with conservation objectives.