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Application of GIS in the Development of Ecotourism

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Asia-Pacific Journal of Social Sciences
Special Issue No.4, December 2013
ISSN 2229-5801(Print) / ISSN 0975-5942 (Electronic)
© International Society for Asia-Pacific Studies [ISAPS]

Application of GIS in the Development of Ecotourism in Nainital City

Uttarakhand
Zubairul Islam1 and Mohammad Afsar Alam2
1
Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, Adikeih College of Arts and Social Science, Eritrea
2
Assistant professor and Head Department of Geography, Adi-Keih College of Arts and Social Science, Eritrea
Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract
The objective of this work was to find out the most suitable places for eco-tourism development in Nainital city.
Primarily this city was divided into two zones cultural and natural thereafter three most important components of
ecology as vegetation, land surface temperature and land slope was studied with remote sensing techniques.
Nainital is popular hill station for its moderate temperature, magnificent lake and its scenic surrounding. But
unplanned and aggressive tourism development near Naini Lake has turned its natural Environment into buildup
one which was marked as cultural zone. To diffuse tourism activities from cultural zone, suitable places were
searched out in its surrounding from the view point of eco-tourism development.
Vegetation, land surface temperature were measured with pixel data of Landsat-7/ETM+ and slope was calculated
with Aster data. Places with high vegetation density, low temperature and gentle slope were marked as suitable
place for eco-tourism development in the surrounding of buildup area (cultural zone) named as natural zone.
Key words: NDVI, LST, Eco Tourism, Nainital

Introduction Globally, an ever increasing number of

GIS used for identifying location suitability and destinations have opened up and invested in
resource inventories according to environmental tourism development, turning modern tourism
concern. Ecotourism development is a very into a key driver of socio-economic progress
sensitive issue in a particular destination in terms through the creation of jobs and enterprises,
of complex ecosystem and local population infrastructure development and the export
habits. To identify untouched areas GIS can play revenues earned. As an internationally traded
an important role. By analyzing satellite images it service, inbound tourism has become one of the
is possible to identify complex areas inside the world's major trade categories. The overall export
deep forest or trained mountain region even in income generated by inbound tourism, including
the deep ocean where a general survey method is passenger transport, exceeded US$ 1 trillion in
almost impossible. Impact analysis is related to 2010, or close to US$ 3 billion aday (UNWTO,
this application as GIS can be used to evaluate 2011). Tourism exports account for as much as
potential impact of tourism development on the 30% of the world's exports of commercial services
natural environment (Bahaire & White, 1999). and 6% of overall exports of goods and services.

Asia-Pacific Journal of Social Sciences, Special Issue No.4, December 2013, pp. 125-132 125
Zubairul Islam and Mohammad Afsar Alam

Globally,as an export category, tourism ranks products covered could be: Rural Tourism,
fourth after fuels, chemicals and automotive Adventure Tourism, Medical Tourism, Wellness
products. For many developing countries it is one Tourism, Eco Tourism, Development of Camp
of the main sources of foreign exchange income Sites, and Promotion of Caravan Tourism, Golf
and the number one export category, creating Tourism, Polo Tourism and so on. The ministry
much needed employment and opportunities for will take appropriate training initiatives in
development(UNWTO,2011). In over 150 consultation with various stake-holders(Ministry
countries tourism is one of the five top export of Tourism Government of India, 2012).
earners, and in 60 it is the number one export. It is Uttarakhand State was carved out of the state of
the main source of foreign exchange for one third Uttar Pradesh on November 9, 2000.It is divided
of developing countries and one- half of each into two broad regions--Garhwal and Kumaon.
Least Developed Countries (LDCs), where it The state is comprised of13 districts, namely,
accounts for upto 40%of their GDP (Ministry of Chamoli, Pauri, Tehri, Uttarkashi, Dehradun,
Tourism Government of India, 2012). Haridwar and Rudraprayag in the Garhwal
Global market trends indicate that long-haul region and Nainital, Almora, Pithoragarh,
travel, neighboring country tourism, rural and Udham SinghNagar, Champawat and
ethnic tourism, wellness and health holidays, Bageshwar in the Kumaon region (Mittal et al.
cultural tourism, spiritualism, ecotourism, sports 2008).
and adventure holidays, and coastal tourism and Uttarakhand is a region of outstanding natural
cruises are a few emerging areas of tourist beauty. The high Himalayan ranges and glaciers
interest(UNWTO,2011). cover most of the northern parts of the state, while
Tourism is one economic sector in India that has the lower reaches are densely forested. The
the potential to grow at a highrate and ensure unique Himalayan ecosystem playshost to a large
consequential development of the infrastructure number of animals (including bharal, snow
at the destinations. It has the capacity to capitalize leopards, leopardsand tigers), plants and rare
on the country's success in the services sector and herbs. Two of India's mightiest rivers, the
provide sustainable models of growth. In India, Gangaand the Yamuna take birth in the glaciers of
the travel and tourism sector is estimated to create Uttarakhand, and are fed byinnumerable lakes,
78 jobs per million rupees of investment glacial melts and streams in the region (Ministry
compared to 45 jobs in the manufacturing sector of Tourism, 2000).
for similar investment. Alongwith construction, it The formation of the new state had to fulfill the
is one of the largest sectors of service industry in high expectations of the local people related to
India. Apart from providing employment to a development and better living standards.
wide spectrum of job seekers from the unskilled However, within Uttarakhand there is a
to the specialized, a higher proportion of tourism geographical inequality between the hills and the
benefits (jobs, petty trade opportunities) accrue to plains that divides the state critically. Districts in
women(Planning Commission, 2011). the plains are far ahead on various development
The Ministry of tourism, Government of India indicators. In 2006-07 the state GDP grew by 10.15
will expand the scope and sweep of its training per cent, the manufacturing sector grew by 17 per
efforts to cover service providers on a range cent and the share of the primary sector has
drivers, tongawallahs, valets, spatherapists, shrinked by 2.7 per cent. Industries have created
beauticians, bell boys, specialized masons about 2.8 lakh jobs but these are in the plains, and
(restorers of heritage and historical buildings), most of the growth due to industrialization has
travel and tour facilitators and so on. The been restricted to the plains(Mittal et al. 2008).

Asia-Pacific Journal of Social Sciences, Special Issue No.4, December 2013, pp. 125-132 126
 Application of GIS in the Development of Ecotourism in Nainital City Uttarakhand

The hill region districts are less developed in development plan that would contribute at the
terms of infrastructure, i.e., electricity, roads and same time to environmental conservation.
irrigation. The inter-district inequality in
infrastructure leads to increasing disparity in
Site Description
terms of income and livelihood between the hills The study area comprises the environment of
and the plains. Low levels of income not only Nainital Lake. It is located in Kumaon Himalayas
result in low levels of consumption and material of Uttarakhand, India. Coordinates of this lake
deprivation, but also constrain human potential are as 29°24'N 79°28'E' & 29.4°N 79.47°E. It is
by restricting access to education and health situated at an elevation of 1,938 m. The lake is
facilities, thereby creating a vicious cycle of bounded by the high and steep Naina peak on the
poverty(Mittal et al. 2008). North West side, by the Tiffin Top to the south
west side and snow view peaks on the north.
Nainital Lake, in the Nainital district called the Coniferous forest trees cover these hill ranges.
Lake District of India, is one of the four Lakes of The annual rainfall in the basin area of the lake is
Kumaon hills; the other three lakes are the Sattal reported to be 1294.5 mm (43.15 inches). Tropical
Lake, the Bhimtal Lake and the Naukuchiyatal monsoon climate with maximum temperature
Lake(Nainital lake, 2013).It has high potential of 24.6 °C and minimum of 0.5 °C are recorded. The
eco tourism development. water is reported to be alkaline in nature (ph
In ecotourism planning the first issue that value of 8.49.3).The lake receives flows from the
emerges is the environment and its conservation. surrounding catchment basin which comprises
An ecotourism destination must in no way be the hill slopes and springs. The mean water
developed without planning in terms of retention time for the lake was computed as 1.16
environmental concern. Referring to the Gray years for the mean annual rainfall (Nainital Lake,
rocks reservoir in Wyoming US, for example 2013). Figure 1
Gribb (1991) described a planning endeavor
where the aim was to come up with a recreation

Asia-Pacific Journal of Social Sciences, Special Issue No.4, December 2013, pp. 125-132 127
Zubairul Islam and Mohammad Afsar Alam

Asia-Pacific Journal of Social Sciences, Special Issue No.4, December 2013, pp. 125-132 128
 Application of GIS in the Development of Ecotourism in Nainital City Uttarakhand

Materials and Methodology surface temperature in both the zones. Cultural

This research was carried out using software zone was marked with Google earth in kml and
Erdas 11 &ArcGis 9.3; a vector based changed into shape file format to work on with
Geographical Information System. Erdas 11 was ArcGis at Landsat data.Natural zone was
used for image preprocessing and ArcGis 9.3 was developed around cultural zone at one km
used for classification and mapping. distance using buffering tool. To derive this
research Landsat ETM+ imagesfrom 1999
Methodology October 15 and Aster image were used.Model
First Environment of Nainital Lake was divided adopted for GIS and remote sensing work is
into two zones cultural and natural to calculate shown in figure 2.
the difference in terms of vegetation and land

Figure 2

Image preprocessing NDVI index has been applied for measurement of

Atmospheric calibration vegetation distribution and density in this
It is important toremove atmospheric effects, research.
especially for scene matching and The NDVI algorithm subtracts the red reflectance
changedetection analysis.The dark pixel values from the near-infrared and divides it by
subtraction technique was used for the same, it the sum of near-infrared and red bands (Eq. 1):
assumes that the pixel of lowestDN in each band NDVI= (NIR-RED) / (NIR+RED)………….. (Eq. 1)
should really be zero, and hence its radiometric
value(DN) is the result of atmosphere-induced Where
additive errors (Crane, 1971; Chavez et al, 1977). NIR is the 3rd band image
Measurement of vegetation distribution RED is the 4th band image

Asia-Pacific Journal of Social Sciences, Special Issue No.4, December 2013, pp. 125-132 129
Zubairul Islam and Mohammad Afsar Alam

Calculations of NDVI for a given pixel always result Measurement of slope

in a number that ranges from minus one (-1) to plus Slope identifies the steepest downhill slope for a
one (+1); however, no green leaves gives a value location on a surface. Slope was calculated for
close to zero. A zero means no vegetation and close each cell in raster using Aster data. Aster data was
to +1 (0.8 - 0.9) indicates the highest possible density projected to projected coordinate system. Slope
of green leaves (Frantzova, 2010). Study area's values were classified with spatial analyst tool.
results were converted into 0-255for an easier
The area with slope less than 25 degree was
calculation and classifications of the vegetation type.
extracted.
Considering this value system, the calculated and
normalized NDVI index for each pixel of the satellite Model adopted for finding new sites for the
images of regions were categorized in four groups development of eco - tourism is shown in figure 4.
which indicate the different ranges of the vegetation
density (Table 1).
Table 1. Numerical range of NDVI
Numerical range of NDVI Vegetation
Old values New values Density
-1 to - 0.242092 0-100 No Vegetation
- 0.242092 to 0.089243 100-150 Low to Medium Results and Discussion
0.089243 to 0.486845 150-210 Medium to High Nainital Lake covers area of 0.462 km2. The area of
0.486845 to 1 210-255 Too High its demarcated cultural and natural zones was
Study calculated 5.23km2and 14 km2respectively. Figure
4
Measurement of land surface temperature
To measure landsurface temperature first calibrated
DN values of Landsat image (band 6 ETM+) were
converted into spectral radiance and spectral
radiance was converted into surface temperature as
following:
A. To get the spectral radiance, Lλ, the following algorithm
(1) was applied
Lλ= Lmin + (Lmax Lmin)* DN/255 …………………. (1)
Where,
Lmax= the spectral radiance that is scaled to DNmax
Lmin= the spectral radiance that is scaled to DNmin
DN = the quantized calibrated pixel value.
B. To convert spectral radiance to temperature the following
algorithm (2) was applied

Where,
Tb = Surface temperature
K1= Calibration constant 1 (607.76) For calculation of vegetation density band 3 & 4 of
K2= Calibration constant 2 (1260.56) Landsat ETM + (data of acquisition1999, October
To convert temperature in Celsius formula, TB= TB- 273 was 15) were used.
used.

Asia-Pacific Journal of Social Sciences, Special Issue No.4, December 2013, pp. 125-132 130
 Application of GIS in the Development of Ecotourism in Nainital City Uttarakhand

Optimum locations were calculated in natural squire km area was identified as potential sites for
zone of Nainital city. This zone covers an area of the development of eco-tourism in this zone
14 km2. Different type of geographical features at (Figure 5).
micro level were found in this zone. The area The major principles of Eco tourism are concern
having slope less than 20 degree, vegetation with ecology, local culture and its economy. From
moderate to high (NDVI classified value > 150) the view point of ecology, it is must to study the
and temperature less than 20 degree centigrade carrying capacity of the region. As per the
are marked as potential areas for the carrying capacity of the proposed sites tourism
development of eco-tourism. Two and half development should be there.

Asia-Pacific Journal of Social Sciences, Special Issue No.4, December 2013, pp. 125-132 131
 Zubairul Islam and Mohammad Afsar Alam

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Asia-Pacific Journal of Social Sciences, Special Issue No.4, December 2013, pp. 125-132 132

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