site selection appropriate zones for sport tourism in mountain areas a case study: karaj-chalous road

the mountains as the other natural environment are the main purposes for nature based tourism such as sport tourism and have a finite capacity for recreation development which differs from one place to another and naturally causes different type of tourism’s development. therefore land suitability is very important before tourism planning. some charactristics like geomorphological, biological and unique natural landscapes make karaj-callous road as one of the most popularity tourism region in iran and study about it ’s capacity and limitation and do planning could cause sustainable tourism. in this regard current research with the goal introducing the best place for development nature-based tourism activities in mountain ecosystem, using spatial multi criteria evaluation and prepare criteria for some sport activities including mountaineering, rock climbing, trekking, slope walking, mountain biking, horse riding and canyoneering. in order to illustrating the relationship between the objectives and criteria, a hierarchy structure defined. the criteria weighted by the analytical hierarchy process and expert choice software, maps of each criterion combined together by weighted linear combination in gis for provide suitable places for tourism activities. criteria was includin geomorphological caractristics (soil, rock features and topography). results show about 58% of study area has capability for development a variety sport tourism activities in mountain.