Today’s situation in cities requires that planned parks be set up to create ecological equilibrium. An ecological park is a place in which recreational activities take place simultaneously with the identification and handling of a variety of environmental issues. Proper site selection is one of the key issues in creating eco-parks. Improving the level of services to people in the ecological parks requires appropriate solutions to be applied at different levels of planning, management, and execution. Hence, the current study aimed to employ multi-criteria evaluation methods (MCE) including the weighted linear combination (WLC), fuzzy logic, and analytic hierarchy process technique (AHP) to identify the suitable zones for establishing an ecological park in the central region of Isfahan province. Based on the literature review and the study area’s environmental conditions, seven criteria (including Topography, landscape, climate, rock and soil, water resources, environmental sensitivity, and accessibility) and 20 sub-criteria were selected, prepared, and standardized using fuzzy logic in the range of 0 to 255. A questionnaire based approach was used to obtain pair comparison matrix of factors, the weight of the criteria and the sub-criteria, completed by experts based on the Saaty’s nine-point scale. Finally, all layers were combined using WLC and the land suitability map for ecological parks was produced. Results indicated that 980 hectares (0.1%) of the study area has a high potential for creating ecological parks. By applying area constraints, 7 zones with high potential were identified and were prioritized based on the suitability. The zone with an area of 85.23 hectares located in the Bag Bahadoran district and adjacent to the Zayanderood River was selected as the most suitable zone due to its larger area, more access to welfare facilities, and more ecological potentials. Finally, by overlaying the ecological park’s land suitability map and the map of existing parks in the region, the suitability of the existing parks to become ecological parks was evaluated. The results suggested that Sararud coastal park located in Mobarakeh and coastal park located in Zarrin Shahr are suitable places for establishing ecological park in the region. Keywords: Eco-park, Multi-Criteria Evaluation, Weighted Linear Combination, Geographic Information System, Analytic Hierarchy Process, Site Selection.
