Review Of ReseaRch impact factOR : 5.2331(Uif) UGc appROved JOURnal nO. 48514 issn: 2249-894X vOlUme - 7 | issUe - 10 | JUly - 2018 __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ Available online at www.lbp.world 1 ECOTOURISM AESTHETICS AND PROSPECTS: A GEOSPATIAL ASSESSMENT OF RAJAJI NATIONAL PARK Shairy Chaudhary 1 , M. S. Negi 2 and Atul Kumar 3 1&3 Ph.D. Research Scholar, Associate Professor 2 Department of Geography, H.N.B. Garhwal University (A Central University), Srinagar Garhwal, Uttarakhand, India. ABSTRACT There are 32 National parks, 92 Wild life sanctuaries located in 11 Himalayan states of India. Uttarakhand is the northern Himalayan state of India, where 6 National parks and 6 wild life sanctuaries established by the national and international organizations. These sites are well preserved, most beautiful attractions nationally and internationally among the tourists community for their amusement, knowledge and awareness regarding conservation of natural heritage. Rajaji National Park is one of the famous for his natural beauty, the prosperous diversity of flora, fauna and topographic landscape, which is located between Latitude 29° 56 ’ 40” N to 30° 20’ N and Longitude79 0 80’ E to 78 0 01’ 15” E in Pauri, Haridwar and Dehradun districts. It occupies around 820 Km 2 areas in 9 forest ranges and situated in the lower Shiwalik range, foothills and Gangetic plains. Terrain relief of the park ranges between 271 m to 1381 m. from mean sea level. Shiwalik range passes from east to west from the park and River Ganga flows from North South and cut Shiwalik range in North East part of the park and makes flood plain in Southern part of Park. In the present study various aspects of the park such as topography, vegetative cover and Species, fauna species, Climate, accommodation facilities, transport and tourist attractions have been described using Remote Sensing and GIS geospatial tools and techniques. The annual tourist flow of the park has been statically evaluated to show the potential as an economic resource and the growing interest of tourists towards this sector of the state economy. KEY WORDS : RJNP, Ecotourism potentials and resources, Geospatial Techniques. 1. INTRODUCTION The concept Ecotourism is an abbreviation of ecological tourism, which refers to understand and protect the freedom of tourism in Nature. According to the Nature Conservation Union (IUNC), the definition of ecotourism includes having fun while supporting the protection of the Natural and Cultural resources. This involves maintaining a low visitor impact and provides the local community with socioeconomic benefits. Furthermore, ecotourism refers to traveling in environmental – responsible ways to limit the impact to the area visited (Cetin & Sevik, 2016). Ecotourism is a form of tourism that involves traveling to peaceful and unpolluted natural areas. According to the definition and principles of ecotourism established by The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) in 1990, ecotourism is "Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people." (TIES, 1990) (Sayyed, Mansoori, & Jaybhaye, 2013). Himalayan region is very prosperous in Natural biodiversity because of its terrain landscape feature. It is enchanting natural beauty attracts people to visit. That reflects the conservative approach of the visit communities