Mapping Potential Zones for Ecotourism Ecosystem Services as a Tool to Promote Landscape Resilience and Development in a Brazilian Municipality

João Vitor Roque Guerrero, António Alberto Teixeira Gomes, José Augusto de Lollo and Luiz Eduardo Moschini
Additional contact information
João Vitor Roque Guerrero: Department of Environmental Sciences, Federal University of São Carlos, São Carlos 13565-905, Brazil
António Alberto Teixeira Gomes: Department of Geography, Porto University, 4150-564 Porto, Portugal
José Augusto de Lollo: Department of Civil Engineering, Universidade Estadual Paulista at Ilha Solteira, Ilha Solteira 15385-000, Brazil
Luiz Eduardo Moschini: Department of Environmental Sciences, Federal University of São Carlos, São Carlos 13565-905, Brazil

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 24, 1-21

Abstract: In recent decades, with the increasing global need for sustainable development, ecotourism has emerged as one of the most efficient activities that can be used to reconcile economic development with environmental conservation. A growing interest in the ecotourism and ecosystem services provided by landscapes makes such services increasingly necessary within municipal planning processes. This study aims to construct a geoenvironmental model based on geographic information systems (GISs) to spatially identify areas with greater capacity to promote ecotourism, with a practical case study of the city of Brotas, Brazil. The model can produce an integrated analysis of landscape components using geoenvironmental, topographic, and urban data. As a result, four zones were classified according to their ecotourism potential, with 81% of the overall local territory showing great potential, which not only reinforces the territory’s resilience regarding sustainable development, but also demonstrates that ecotourism should be included in discussions related to environmental planning in Brotas, as well as in other municipalities that have ecotourism potential.

Keywords: landscape planning; GIS; ecotourism; ecosystem services; AHP; fuzzy inference; zoning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/24/10345/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/24/10345/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:24:p:10345-:d:460218

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().