Nature Based Tourism Management Planning of Choghakhor Wetland by Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation (SMCE)

The natural beauty as well as the diversity of animal and plant life in many wetlands makes them ideal locations for tourists. It is essential to preserve wetlands in the extensive range of human activities to obtain sustainable wetlands. Management planning process is a mechanism for achieve this purpose. In this study, recreational management planning with Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) has implemented on Choghakhor wetland in Charmahal-O-bakhtiari province. Following steps were performed: 1) defining objectives 2) identifying protective criteria 3) choosing criteria using Delphi method 4) weighting and ranking criteria using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) 5) mapping indicators and in result, selecting recreational zones. According to the Delphi questionnaire results, species sensitivity sub-criteria from the wildlife main criteria obtained a maximum percentage of importance. The result of AHP process showed that landscape was the most important criteria. Finally, considering Choghakhor wetland boundary on the basis of macrophytes’ expansion; ecotourism zone, natural based tourism dependent on physical development and natural based tourism independent on physical development, were identified as recreational zones.