Multi objective land allocation (MOLA) for zoning Ghamishloo Wildlife Sanctuary in Iran

Abstract

Protected area zoning is an approach towards decreasing conflict between the possible uses of land and providing an opportunity for policy making. GIS data processing and spatial analysis along with decision analysis techniques, were used in this study to define zones for Ghamishloo Wildlife Sanctuary according to I.U.C.N. category IV in Isfahan Province of Iran. We used multi-criteria evaluation and multi-objective land allocation for zoning the sanctuary, which covers an area of about 866 km². First, we prepared a land use map of the area using classification of the IRS 6 (AWiFS) data of May 2005. For zoning this region, nine major criteria including wildlife habitat, vegetation cover, soil, distance to historical places, water resources, road, scenic beauties in the landscape, and also to residential areas, and to the core zone were considered. We used the analytical hierarchy process to derive weights of the criteria and then applied a weighted linear combination technique to combine the factors. The degree of suitability was defined by applying Fuzzy membership function. The wildlife sanctuary was divided into four zones including conservation, recreation, rehabilitation, and cultural zones, consisting of 69%, 21%, 9.5% and 0.5% of the area, respectively. Finally, multi-objective land allocation (MOLA) function was used for allocation of the sanctuary's land area to the zones which produced reasonable results.

Introduction

Zoning is now considered to be one of the most important tools for administration and management of protected areas (Sabatini et al., 2007, Walther, 1986). In general terms, zoning divides a designated area into management and usage units. The main objective of zoning is to allocate appropriate human activities/uses to certain areas with respect to conservation objectives, thus allowing a high level of protection in one part of the protected area and controlled levels of non-damaging use in other parts. Typically, designated areas zoning schemes consist of core areas, where strict nature conservation is enforced, and areas where gradually more intensive human presence and activities are allowed (Geneletti & Duren 2008).

Pursuing the diverse objectives in designated areas frequently leads to conflict because different stakeholders, e.g. tourism operators, aboriginal communities, tourists, scientists, etc. have different resource expectations (Eagles, McCool, & Haynes 2002). The assignment of land units to specific uses helps to mitigate these kinds of conflicts (Walther 1986). Zoning is helpful not only for maintaining biodiversity in the designated areas, and to protect rare or endangered species and typical ecosystems, but also plays a key role in the long-term development of entire nature reserves (Liu & Li 2008).

To achieve the established goals for the designated areas recommended by International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (I.U.C.N.), considering environmental planning and zoning is essential. In other words, appropriate zoning is an important part of protected areas management.

In spite of the importance and potential benefits of zoning, the lack of zoning is common for most protected areas in developing countries (Sabatini et al. 2007). Many of the designated areas in Iran also suffer from lack of zoning and management plans. Only a few studies on evaluation and zoning of protected areas in Iran have been done and all of them have approximately been based on Boolean logic using McHarg or Makhdoum method (Makhdoum 2001). Makhdoum (1992) evaluated ecological capability of Guilan and Mazandaran provinces in Iran using manual map overly method based on Boolean logic for urban, industrial, rural and tourism developments. Dehdar dargahi, Karami, and Khorasani (2007) offered a zoning plan for the no-hunting area of Deilaman and Dorfak for optimised management of the area that included protection and development goals. Units for different zones were decided by considering especial models for parks. In another study, evaluating and zoning for Marakan protected area (NW Iran) was done to find out whether the protected area matches with one of the IUCN categories (Cheraghi, Khorasani, Karami, Shariat, & Riazi 2008). However, in Iran still there is no study on land use evaluations of protected areas using multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) and multi-objective land allocation (MOLA) methods. In spite of the Boolean constraints which leave no room for prioritisations, and give equal value to all suitable area regardless of their position in reference to their factors, the MCE and MOLA enable decision makers to evaluate the relative priorities of protected areas based on a set of preferences, criteria and indicators for the area and provide a procedure for solving multi-objective land allocation problems for cases with conflicting objectives.

Recent developments in geographical information systems (GIS) have also led to significant improvements in its capability for decision making processes in land allocation and environmental management using multi-criteria evaluation (Caver 1991). Capabilities of GIS and MCE for spatial decision making have been used in several studies. Wood and Dragicevic (2007) carried out an investigation on the capability of decision making support systems based on Fuzzy, GIS and MCE in a special zone of Pacific Ocean in Canada. Ok (2006) investigated impact of tourism on a protected area in Turkey by choosing 28 different criteria, using ELECTRE weighting method and multi-criteria decision analysis model. Geneletti and Duren (2008) studied a national park in Italy, and by identifying the spatial factors affecting different zones, used the MOLA function to zone the area. This study is one of the few studies to use MOLA for zoning. Surprisingly, through searching the scientific literature we could find fewer publications on zoning of terrestrial parks than marine parks (but see Canova, 2006, Lin, 2000).

This paper presents a geographic information system (GIS)-based multi-criteria decision making approach for zoning of Ghamishloo Wildlife Sanctuary in Iran and selecting the best zones for its conservation using Fuzzy set membership. This approach attempts to turn the artificially crisp and clear-cut criteria of the Boolean approach into real-life continuous criteria that express a degree of suitability and enables decision makers to evaluate the relative priorities of conserving the area. In addition, this automatic zoning process through GIS can avoid subjectivity in terms of defining the zones, and consequently can avoid the conflicts between conservation and local development. With regard to the availability of the methods for automatic evaluation and zoning of protected areas, few cases exist in Iran in which an improvement from the manual map overlay method has been exercised. This study exemplifies the advantages of using automatic MCE and MOLA method for protected area planning in Iran and reveals the gaps required to be filled in order to the method be regarded practical.