A Spatial Regional Planning Assessment for Green Development Towards Ecotourism with Use of MCDA/SAW Method (Case Study: Spanish Rural Housings)
In the late 20th century, Spanish rural areas are under increasing pressure of illegal construction sprawls and human movements: the areas are also affecting to its ecological consequences. Particularly, the conflict in ecotourism areas between rapid urban development and environmental conservation urgently needs to be addressed due to their regional geographical characteristics. This paper presents a spatial and sustainable planning approach, identifying rural housings' suitability maps in a case study area, La Vera, Spain. Evaluation criteria determine a spatial data management with a grading system, based on constraints, tourism resource, environmental and social economic criteria that are supporting economic opportunities, environmental conservation, local municipal benefits and efficient management of ecotourism. The method presented herein is an integrated application using the multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA) based on the understanding of all possible aspects and implications, applied for weight coefficients calculation of the criteria according to their impact and sensitivity. Six constraints and twelve criteria were assessed in the process of computation, categorized into four groups. Then, with the assistance of the simple additive weighting (SAW) the final housings' suitability map is assessed for the case study area on grading scale of 0 to 255. Here, it displays that 7.99% of La Vera has a most suitable area for sustainable and resilient housings planning after considering their stable sensitive analysis. Therefore, the proposed planning method and the results measuring regional geographical characteristics can be used for policy and decision making process of sustainable and resilient housing planning towards ecotourism at all government levels and private sectors. Moreover, this approach can extend to similar geographical conditions and situations for verifying suitable housings planning suitability.