A SPATIAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM (SDSS) AND WATER QUALITY MODELING FOR SUSTAINABLE TOURISM PLANNING: A Framework

The need for a sustainable approach in tourism development is very often addressed among the academia, the authorities and the stakeholders, as well as the apparent need for tools which will guide the decision environment in evaluation and planning. This research aims to determine conservation and compatible areas for tourism and economic development in Johor Ramsar site, using spatial modeling of Geographic Information System (GIS) and Multi Criteria Evaluation (MCE). The study describes a methodological approach based on an integrated use of GIS, Water Quality Index (WQI) and Analytic Network Process (ANP) of MCE to determine nature conservation, tourism and economic development priorities among the wetland areas. A set of criteria and indicators will be defined to evaluate wetlands biodiversity conservation and development. Pair wise comparison technique will be used in order to support solution of a decision problem by evaluating possible alternatives from different perspectives. This can be achieved through the assignment of a weight to each criteria or indicator that indicates its importance relatively to the other using expert opinion as input. After the weights have been derived from the pairwise comparison technique, the next step will be to compute the unweighted supermatrix, weighted supermatrix and the limit matrix. The results will then be synthesized through the addition of all the control criteria and the results transferred into GIS environment. Criteria to be evaluated and ranked will be represented by criterion maps. The criteria will be evaluated by reclassifying the data layers, to represent different needs for conservation and development. This will be computed using typical functionalities of raster-based GIS such as distance operators, interpolation, conversion and reclassification functions. To determine the water quality of the river, parameters of the sampling stations will be used to calculate the sub-indices. Consequently surface data of water quality will be generated from the points of the sampling stations. Map layers reflecting the opinion of different experts involved will be compared using the Boolean overlay approach of GIS, in order to highlight the robustness of the solution. Subsequently conservation, tourism and economic development scenarios will be generated, with each scenario representing the best solution to a decision problem.