Arasbaran ecotourism potential assessment whit emphasis on the scientific and additional values

Abstract:Development of tourism in recent decades, especially in the first decade of this century has caused the experts to be focused on different aspects of it. One of these aspects is the design of Geomorphologic relation with tourism issues including study of interdisciplinary in recent years. During the last decade, the promotion of geoheritage has developed rapidly due to the creation of geoparks and the development of geotourism. In this context, the assessment of geomorphosites is in need of the inclusion of other values in the evaluation process (cultural، ecological، economical، historical، aesthetic، ...). In the present study, according to the criteria of economic, social, historical, cultural, aesthetic, ecological and geomorphologic, assessment scientific and additional value method have been used to identify ecotourism potential of Arasbaran area. Arasbaran area is located in south of the Aras River and 60 km to Ahar city and to West of kaleybar city in east Azarbaijan province (IRAN). In this study, we propose a set of definitions and methods for the evaluation of scientific and additional values of geomorphosites Arasbaran. The aim of the proposed method is to combine the assessment of scientific value whith additional for geoheritage conservation and management. The results obtained in this study represented outstanding geomorphosites scientific values, rather than other criteria.