The Identification of ecotourism's indicators and criteria of afforestation designing for Southern Iran’s Sahara-Sindhi habitat

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Geographical Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of Hormozgan, Bandarabbas, Iran

2 Department of Range and Watershed Management, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Hormozgan, Bandarabbas, Iran

3 Assistant professor of Physical Geography, Department of Geographical Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of Hormozgan

Abstract

Population increase, urban sprawl and marginalization, demands entertainment, sightseeing, and the use of recreation spaces around cities. Afforestation canopy within the vicinity, in addition to the environmental benefits, can also meet part of the city dweller’s recreation needs. Therefore, the present study tries to identify the criteria and indicators for the designing of forest landscapes in the Southern Iran’s Sahara-Sindhi habitat and introduce them for ecotourism use. This research is based on reviewing previous research, questionnaires and using the Delphi method. Said questionnaires contain the following criteria: ecology, economics, social and infrastructure, that was compiled by the researchers and presented to a group of 15 respondents. Ecology’s criteria, with four sub-criteria and 25 indicators; Economics criteria, with two sub-criteria and 10 indicators; Social’s criterion with two sub-criteria and nine indicators and Infrastructure criterion with two sub-criteria and 27 indicators. Applying opinions from our panel of experts and calculating average scores, four criteria, 9 sub-criteria and 62 indicators were identified as " ecotourism-based afforestation designing for Southern Iran’s Sahara-Sindhi habitat". The results show that social, economic, ecological and infrastructural criteria are prioritized with scores of 35.1,35.0, 33.1 and 30.1, respectively. Based on the slight difference in social and economic criteria, it can be said that in designing such ecotourism destinations, local awareness, well-being, income, livelihood of local communities, efficiency of ecotourism and investment in the region are the most important aspects and should be prioritized, considering that the represented criteria all have very little difference in scores. Therefore, we could announce that all mentioned criteria are important and according to the respondents, they should be taken into consideration for afforestation designing.

Highlights

The questionnaire, which contained 4 criteria (ecological with four sub-criteria and 25 indicators; economic with two sup-criteria and 10 indicators; social with two sub-criteria and nine indicators and infrastructure with two sub criteria and 27 indicators), was developed by the researchers and sent to the respondent group. The group of respondents surveyed the questionnaires twice. By the first survey, the climate sub-criterion and all its indicators (with one exception that was removed because of a low score later on the second survey) were removed. According to a great number of our respondents, "the separation of vegetation areas already has the climate factor analyzed within its structure" (Mozafariyan, 2014; Sabeti, 2008; Tabesh, 2013). Eventually the identified number of, 4 criteria, the reduced 9 sub-criteria and also reduced 62 indicators for "Iran's southern Sahara-Sindhi habitat" were announced.

Within our results, Social criterion was announced with the highest score value, verified via Galich (2016), Hossein (2016), Mirhosseini and Khezri (2017) and Khancheh's (2009) research, (since they also represented the social criterion as the most important criterion). Between all our indicators, "Planting native trees", "waste disposal and sewage facilities", "security and security forces", "local environmental awareness" and "the existence of drinking water" received the highest average scores of 45.09, 44.95, 44.32, 43.50 and 41.43 respectively. On the other hand, "sport facilities", "locations dedicated to photography" and "recreational facilities" achieved the lowest scores of 16.32, 16.41 and 17.05 respectively. Padial et al (2018) reached the conclusion that managed forests get better feedback concerning the natural beauty of public forests because they are taken better care of. Frick et al (2018) notes that people prefer education and social infrastructures rather than sport and entertainment ones. While our statistical results merge pretty fairly with both notes mentioned above.

 

 

Conclusion

Summarizing the results shows that social, ecological, infrastructural and economic criteria are prioritized with scores of 35.1, 33.1, 30.1 and 28.7, respectively. Among the examined criteria, the social criterion received the highest score and the economic criterion received the lowest score from the experts with a difference of less than 18.3%. Based on these results, it can be said that in the design of such ecotourism destinations, local awareness, well-being, income and livelihood are the most important aspects and should be prioritized. The criterion of ecology and infrastructure are also placed in the second and third priorities with a nuance of value. Considering that the represented criteria all have very little difference in scores, we could announce that all mentioned criteria are important and according to the respondents, they should be taken into consideration for afforestation designing.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Full Text

افزایش جمعیت، گسترش شهرها و حاشیه نشینی، تفرج، گشت و گذار و بهره‌گیری از فضاهای تفرجی اطراف شهرها را الزام‌آور کرده است. پوشش جنگلی دست‌کاشت اطراف شهرها، می‌تواند علاوه بر منافع زیست‌محیطی بخشی از نیاز تفرجی مردم شهر را نیز پاسخگو باشد. بدین منظور، پژوهش حاضر سعی دارد معیارها و شاخص‌های طراحی مناظر جنگلی در منطقه خلیجی - عمانی را شناسایی و  برای استفاده اکوتوریسمی معرفی نماید. نوع این پژوهش، کتابخانه‌ای و مبتنی بر داده‌های پیمایشی و مقطعی است که به شیوه پرسشنامه‌ای در سالهای 1400 و 1401 به روش دلفی انجام شد. پرسشنامه‌ای حاوی چهار معیار اکولوژی، اقتصادی، اجتماعی و زیرساخت‌ها، توسط پژوهشگران تدوین و به گروه پانزده نفره پرسش‌شوندگان ارائه شد. معیار اکولوژی، دارای چهار زیرمعیار و 25 شاخص؛ معیار اقتصادی، دو زیرمعیار و 10 شاخص؛ معیار اجتماعی، دو زیرمعیار و نه شاخص و معیار زیرساخت‌ها دارای  دو زیرمعیار و 27 شاخص بود. پس از دو راند پیمایشی، اعمال نظرات متخصصین و محاسبه میانگین‌ امتیازات، چهار معیار،  ۹ زیرمعیار و62 شاخص برای «طراحی اکوتوریسمی جنگل‌های دست کاشت در رویشگاه خلیجی- عمانی» شناسایی شد. جمع‌بندی نتایج نشان می‌دهد که معیارهای اجتماعی، اکولوژی، زیرساخت‌ها و اقتصادی، به ترتیب با امتیاز 1/35، 1/33، 1/30 و 7/28 دارای اولویت هستند. از بین معیارهای مورد  بررسی، معیار اجتماعی بیشترین امتیاز و معیار اقتصادی با اختلاف کمتر از 3/18 درصد، کمترین امتیاز متخصصان را دریافت کرد. بر اساس این نتایج می‌توان عنوان داشت که  در طراحی چنین مقاصد اکوتوریسمی، آگاهی، رفاه، درآمد و معیشت جوامع محلی، بیشترین اهمیت را دارا بوده و باید در اولویت قرار گیرد. معیار اکولوژی و زیرساخت نیز با اختلاف اندک در اولویت دوم و سوم قرار می‌گیرند. با توجه به اختلاف اندک امتیازات معیارهای چهارگانه، هر چهار معیار دارای اهمیت بوده و از نظر پرسش‌شوندگان لازم است در طراحی‌ها مورد توجه قرار گیرند.

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Yu, Liu; Hai-Tao, Miao; Ze Huang; Zeng, Cui; Honghua, He; Jiyong, Zheng; Fengpeng, Han; Xiaofeng, Chang; Gao-Lin, Wu, (2018), forest species and ages on the Loess Plateau (China), Forest Ecology and Management Volume 417, 15 May 2018, Pages 137-143

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