Assessment of Geoheritage of Geosites in Dong Van District, Ha Giang Province

Abstract

Dong Van district in Ha Giang province, one of four districts of Dong Van Karst Plateau Geopark, has a number of geosites with great potential for geo-tourism development. By the aim to promote tourism development and to propose a management plan, the present work selects six typical geosites in Dong Van district for assessment geoheritage values. The studied geosites are characterized based on the global framework of geological world heritage [13] and are evaluated values of science, potential education and tourism depending on a series of quantitative criteria from Rocha et al. 2013, Brilha 2016 with a score ranging from 1 to 5, 2002. Furthermore, the qualification of the six-geosite group is recognized according to both the relevance of the meaning attributed to the objects by scientific communities (defined as relevance grade) and the public understanding of such meanings related to the social use of the objects (defined as abstract perceptiveness) from Reis and Henriques 2009. The results show that six geosites are classified into three types of geological sites including paleontology, geomorphology (covered by karst deserts and caves) and petrology-mineralogy. The quantitative assessment concerning scientific requirement and educational as well tourism uses represents and defines the potential geo-tourism development on both the science communities and public understanding. The ultimate goal of the study is to use these results for the conservation of the area.

Keywords

Dong Van district, geosite, geoheritage value, karst desert, conservation.

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