British Columbia has long been known for its diverse ecosystems and topography.  The Coastal Temperate Rainforests of British Columbia are an ecological wonder, rivaling the Equatorial Rainforests of the Amazon.  BC's forest industry has been an integral part of our economy, while supplying countless jobs to British Columbians.  However, through our forestry practices we have witnessed the destruction of vast amounts of old growth forest and a substantial loss of wilderness habitat.  Our forest practices have changed over the years in order to become more sustainable and there has been a lot of jobs lost within the forestry industry.  The tourism industry has the potential to replace these jobs by exploiting the same resources -- our forests and their surrounding habitat.  Eco-tourism is a sustainable practice of tourism if managed properly and can help educate the public about the benefits of our surrounding ecosystems.

        The goal of this project is to find a suitable location for a small eco-tourism resort on Vancouver Island.  The resort will be a modest building built to complement its surrounding environment and minimize the need to cut down any trees.  The site selection process will factor in environmental concerns, such as the protection of endangered species and the site's proximity to rivers, lakes, wetlands and ocean, as well as cost factors and other factors contributing to the beauty and surrounding atmosphere of the resort.  These include the slope of the land, the distance from major roads, the distance from unsightly features, such as urban and logged areas, and the tourism potential of the area, among others.

        The environmental and cost/preference criteria will be evaluated separately at first, to ensure that the environmental factors have a greater influence over the final site selection.  The factors and constraints will be assessed using a multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) in Idrisi 32.  The factors will be assigned fuzzy suitability ratings on a scale of 0 to 255, and then weighted according to their relative importance to others in their group (environment or cost/preference).  Ordered Weight Averaging (OWA) will be used to control both the amount of tradeoff between factors and the level of risk in the site location analysis.  The environmental and cost/preference criteria will then be combined using a second MCE and OWA operation in order to determine a suitable site based on all factors and constraints.

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