ORIGINAL ARTICLE Geotourism Development in World Heritage of the Lut Desert Mehran Maghsoudi 1 & Anvar Moradi 1 & Fatemeh Moradipour 1 & Mohammad Ali Nezammahalleh 1 Received: 10 May 2017 /Accepted: 26 April 2018 # The European Association for Conservation of the Geological Heritage 2018 Abstract Geotourism implicitly implies geologic and geomorphologic characteristics as the base for tourism/recreation activities and geographic situations. The Lut desert and its environmental system have many potential and outstanding universal values including the highest and longest yardangs (kaluts) and very high sand dunes and nebkhas. It is necessary to explore and introduce internationally the values of the Lut desert. In this research, we have initially listed tourism attractions of the Lut desert. Subsequently, their scientific, educational, and tourism value, and degradation risks have been evaluated by Brilha (2016) method. The suitable areas for geotourism development have been determined by the fuzzy AHP method and the optimal areas have also been selected and surveyed based on an assessment of geosites. The results of the geosite evaluation of the Lut desert indicate that the geosites of Shur River, mega-yardangs (kaluts), linear dunes, basalt plateau of Gandom Beryan, and the dreamy city of the Lut (Shahr-e Khialy-ye Lut) have the highest values for geotourism. The results of zonation by fuzzy AHP have also indicated that west, northeast, and southeast parts of the Lut have more suitable conditions for geotourism development. Finally, through the integration of the assessments and zoning of suitable areas for geotourism development with a field survey in a new approach, we have selected eight suitable areas for the geotourism development in the Lut desert. Keywords Geotourism . Geosite . Quantitative assessment . Fuzzy AHP . Lut Desert Introduction Geotourism in an academic perspective in world is initiated by 1995 when it was for first defined by Thomas Hose (Hose 2012). Broadly, geotourism is defined as a set of activities, infrastructures, and services to improve the value of geologi- cal heritage through tourism (Reynard et al. 2007 ). Geotourism is a particular kind of tourism in which geosites are greatly considered by visitors. A geosite can be landscape, a variety of landforms, a rock outcrop, and fossil layers or a fossil (Dowling and Newsome 2006). Geotourism is also the best solution for regional development; particularly, rural areas are well conserved for their natural heritages (Rodrigues et al. 2011). Generally, geotourism is a compre- hensive kind of sustainable tourism. It contains subjects in different areas of tourism including rural tourism (Clarc and Chabrel 2007; Oliver and Jenkins 2003; Ilbery and Kneafsey 2007; Saxena et al. 2007), cultural heritage tourism (Boyd 2002; Kang and Moscardo 2006; Moscardo and Pearce 1999), tourism society (Blackstock 2005; Joppe 1996), tour- ism supporting the poor (Ashley and Roe 2002), and ecotour- ism (Ceballos 1996; Scheyvens 1999). The landforms created from combined processes of biology and geomorphology (Fassoulas et al. 2007) along with cultural, social, and eco- nomic added values (Comanescu et al. 2012) have created tourism sites emphasizing geotourism. Therefore, planning and management of geoheritage and geosite have grown in the recent years and attracted the attention of researchers of geodiversity along with biodiversity. There are policies and efforts that, addition to biodiversity, make attempts to conserve the diversity of geological and geomorphologic landforms. The models and methods for assessment of geosites are new and developing (Burlando et al. 2011). * Mehran Maghsoudi maghsoud@ut.ac.ir Anvar Moradi anvar.moradi@ut.ac.ir Fatemeh Moradipour moradipour.f@ut.ac.ir Mohammad Ali Nezammahalleh mnezammahalleh@ut.ac.ir 1 Faculty of Geography, University of Tehran, Azin Alley, Vesal Street, Tehran, Iran Geoheritage https://doi.org/10.1007/s12371-018-0303-2