PMID- 37520969
OWN - NLM
STAT- Publisher
LR  - 20230801
IS  - 2405-8440 (Print)
IS  - 2405-8440 (Electronic)
IS  - 2405-8440 (Linking)
VI  - 9
IP  - 8
DP  - 2023 Aug
TI  - GIS-based ecotourism potentiality mapping in the East Hararghe Zone, Ethiopia.
PG  - e18567
LID - 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e18567 [doi]
LID - e18567
AB  - The East Hararghe Zone (EHZ) is one of the eastern Ethiopian zones most endowed 
      with diverse landscapes and abundant resources to promote and use for ecotourism 
      development. Potential ecotourism sites have, however, hardly ever been explored 
      so far. The objective of this study was to model and identify potential 
      ecotourism sites by combining Geographic Information System (GIS)-based 
      Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) 
      methods. Six criteria, including landscape and naturalness, wildlife, topography, 
      accessibility, geology, and climate, were established based on experts' 
      preferences and literature, and the thematic factors for suitability modeling 
      were derived from freely accessible satellite imagery and existing geospatial 
      data and combined using a weighted linear combination (WLC) method. The results 
      reveal that about 26.19% were highly suitable, 35.34% were moderately suitable, 
      25.28% were marginally suitable, and 13.17% were not suitable. Most areas with 
      high to marginal suitability were found in the southeast, southwest, and uplands 
      in the northern part, while the southernmost extent had the highest proportion of 
      areas unsuitable for ecotourism development. The area under the curve (AUC) 
      assessment has verified the model's performance, resulting in an overall AUC of 
      74.96%. This suggests that a model-driven map is a reliable spatial support tool 
      for sustainable ecotourism development in areas with diverse landscapes and 
      resources.
CI  - (c) 2023 The Authors.
FAU - Yasin, Kalid Hassen
AU  - Yasin KH
AD  - Department of Remote Sensing and Application Research and Development, Space 
      Science and Geospatial Institute, Entoto Observatory and Research Center (EORC), 
      P.O. Box 33679, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
AD  - Geo-Information Science Program, School of Geography and Environmental Studies, 
      Haramaya University, P.O. Box138, 3220 Dire Dawa, Ethiopia.
FAU - Woldemariam, Gezahegn Weldu
AU  - Woldemariam GW
AD  - Department of Remote Sensing and Application Research and Development, Space 
      Science and Geospatial Institute, Entoto Observatory and Research Center (EORC), 
      P.O. Box 33679, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
AD  - Geo-Information Science Program, School of Geography and Environmental Studies, 
      Haramaya University, P.O. Box138, 3220 Dire Dawa, Ethiopia.
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20230722
PL  - England
TA  - Heliyon
JT  - Heliyon
JID - 101672560
PMC - PMC10382676
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - AHP
OT  - AUC
OT  - Ecotourism
OT  - GIS
OT  - MCDM
OT  - Site suitability
COIS- The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or 
      personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in 
      this paper.
EDAT- 2023/07/31 06:43
MHDA- 2023/07/31 06:43
PMCR- 2023/07/22
CRDT- 2023/07/31 05:00
PHST- 2022/10/31 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2023/07/20 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2023/07/20 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2023/07/31 06:43 [medline]
PHST- 2023/07/31 06:43 [pubmed]
PHST- 2023/07/31 05:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2023/07/22 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - S2405-8440(23)05775-4 [pii]
AID - e18567 [pii]
AID - 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e18567 [doi]
PST - epublish
SO  - Heliyon. 2023 Jul 22;9(8):e18567. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e18567. eCollection 
      2023 Aug.