Geosite Assessment Using Three Different Methods; a Comparative Study of the Krupaja and the Žagubica Springs – Hydrological Heritage of Serbia

Abstract

Hydrological heritage is a relatively new concept in the field of geosite assessment. The principal aim of this study is to apply M-GAM (Modified geosite assessment model) for comparative analysis of the Krupaja spring and the Žagubica (Mlava) spring, located in Homolje area, in Eastern Serbia. According to the classification of geosites of Institute for Nature Conservation of Serbia, these sites are on the list of protected sites (“hydro(geo)logical” heritage sites) of extraordinary national importance; however, they still have not gained necessary recognition in Serbia. Thus, their assessment according to different target groups should provide a clearer picture of their current condition. As M-GAM considers that not all indicators for evaluation of geosites are of the same importance, this paper applies two methods for comparing and determining the importance of indicators and subindicators in the model (Analytical-hierarchy process (AHP) and descriptive statistics conducted by SPSS). Also, it is assumed that different target groups will give different importance to some indicators in the model, which would result in various evaluation scores for the same geosites. The paper also provides a comparative analysis of the assessment carried out by two different target groups – potential geotourists and geoexperts. The results obtained by AHP and descriptive statistics are quite similar, which confirms the reliability of respondents’ answers and the results gained. The analyzed sites are differently positioned in the evaluation matrix, and implications are further discussed in the paper.

What will prevail within citybreak travel, motivation or demotivation?: Case study of Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia

“…The AHP approach is used to construct an evaluation model and calculate criterion weights in a decision making process . It integrates different measures into a single overall score for ranking decision alternatives (Miljković et al, 2018). This research provides a ranking of the push and pull motives, and also demotivation, for visitors of Novi Sad.…”

Geosites Inventory in Liguria Region (Northern Italy): A Tool for Regional Geoconservation and Environmental Management

“…The esthetic value is the most subjective one, as it depends on the individual sensibility and preference of researchers and visitors. In the scientific literature, there has been extensive discussion on esthetic judgment [86] and references therein, and some methodologies have been set up to define the criteria for a quantitative esthetic value assessment, e.g., [84,[87][88][89]. In this work, four criteria (naturalness, panoramic quality, color diversity and vertical development) were considered to assess the esthetic value, according to Reynard et al [84] and Coratza et al [89].…”

M-GAM method in function of tourism potential assessment: Case study of the Sokobanja basin in eastern Serbia

“…This method has been efficiently applied numerous times for the assessment of various geosites in Serbia, Slovenia, USA, and Hungary. Antić et al [46] applied this model in assessing karst geoheritage in eastern Serbia, and other authors applied it for the evaluation of canyons and gorges [24,47], speleo-tourism potential [48][49][50][51], hydrological heritage [52], and other geological heritage [53][54][55][56][57][58].…”