UNCORRECTED PROOF Chapter 2 Identifying and Assessing Geodiversities Around Takht-e-Soleyman World Heritage Site to Propose the Territory as the Third Geopark in Iran Bahram N. Sadry, Azar Mohammadi-Aragh, Fatemeh Fehrest, Ali Bayataniand, and Ali Haji-Moradi Abstract In the twenty-first century, humans paid special attention to applying 1 criteria for the assessment of geodiversity and the introduction of the country’s 2 geoheritage to conserve this valuable abiotic natural heritage and to use it in a sustain- 3 able way, especially via new emergence of the geotourism industry. In Iran, scientific 4 discussion of geotourism was not introduced in academic textbooks until the regis- 5 tration of the Qeshm Island (for the first time) in the Global Geopark Network (GGN) 6 in 2006. However, in spite of being delisted in 2012, it made it to be listed again in 7 GGN in 2017. Meanwhile, the academics, including students, have made valuable 8 unorganized national efforts to identify more territories as potential national/global 9 geoparks by choosing to work on the topic as a master’s or Ph.D. thesis. These 10 efforts accompanying the published textbooks have played a significant role in elim- 11 inating the merely aesthetics point of view toward geotourism and geopark own- 12 made philosophy which was first introduced mistakenly by the Geological Survey 13 & Mineral Explorations of Iran. Today, the number of those interested in the field 14 is growing and thanks to the academic books published, the awareness of the issue 15 has been increased. Fortunately, this is the first successful academic project related 16 to a region’s Geopark feasibility study in Iran completed in 2014, which had been 17 completed partly by the financial support of Geological Survey & Mineral Explo- 18 rations of Iran and by the cooperation of some geo-colleagues from this organization 19 as a teamwork with this university project. The study area is located around the 20 UNESCO-listed World Heritage Site, namely Takht-e Soleyman in the northwest of 21 Iran that is rich in terms of geodiversity, biodiversity, and historical–cultural diversity. 22 However, unfortunately, the study area is in a poor condition economically. Accord- 23 ingly, the establishment of a geopark in the region can increase job creation, prevent 24 immigration of the villagers to the cities, and flourish the economic conditions of the 25 region. In this study, two assessment methods have been used for evaluating selected 26 B. N. Sadry (B ) · A. Mohammadi-Aragh · F. Fehrest · A. Bayataniand · A. Haji-Moradi Ecotourism Department, Faculty of Tourism Sciences, University of Science and Culture; and Consultant of the Project for the Geological Survey & Mineral Explorations of Iran (GSI), Tehran, Iran e-mail: bahram.sadry@usc.ac.ir © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 R. B. Singh et al. (eds.), Global Geographical Heritage, Geoparks and Geotourism, Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4956-4_2 1 489739_1_En_2_Chapter  TYPESET DISK LE  CP Disp.:7/10/2020 Pages: 29 Layout: T1-Standard