Yasin Kalid Hassen, Woldemariam Gezahegn Weldu
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.
Geo-Information Science Program, School of Geography and Environmental Studies, Haramaya University, P.O. Box138, 3220 Dire Dawa, Ethiopia.
Heliyon. 2023 Jul 22;9(8):e18567. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e18567. eCollection 2023 Aug.
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.
哈拉尔格东部地区（EHZ）是埃塞俄比亚东部地区之一，拥有极为多样的景观和丰富的资源，可用于促进和发展生态旅游。然而，迄今为止，潜在的生态旅游景点几乎从未被探索过。本研究的目的是通过结合基于地理信息系统（GIS）的多标准决策（MCDM）和层次分析法（AHP）来建模和识别潜在的生态旅游景点。根据专家的偏好和文献确定了六个标准，包括景观与自然度、野生动物、地形、可达性、地质和气候，并从免费获取的卫星图像和现有地理空间数据中得出适宜性建模的专题因素，然后使用加权线性组合（WLC）方法进行组合。结果显示，约26.19%的区域高度适宜，35.34%的区域中度适宜，25.28%的区域勉强适宜，13.17%的区域不适宜。大部分高度至勉强适宜的区域位于东南部、西南部以及北部的高地，而最南端不适宜生态旅游开发的区域比例最高。曲线下面积（AUC）评估验证了该模型的性能，总体AUC为74.96%。这表明，对于景观和资源多样的地区，模型驱动的地图是可持续生态旅游发展的可靠空间支持工具。
