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This research was funded by the 'Registry of geological and mining heritage and its impact on the defense and preservation of geodiversity in Ecuador' academic research project by ESPOL University. CIPAT-01-2018.
Geosites and Geotourism in the Local Development of Communities of the Andes Mountains. A Case Study
Publicated to:Sustainability. 13 (9): 4624- - 2021-05-01 13(9), DOI: 10.3390/su13094624
Authors: Carrion-Mero, Paul; Borja-Bernal, Cesar; Herrera-Franco, Gricelda; Morante-Carballo, Fernando; Jaya-Montalvo, Maria; Maldonado-Zamora, Alfonso; Paz-Salas, Nataly; Berrezueta, Edgar;
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Abstract
The inventory and assessment of a geosite in a territory provides a sound basis for the protection and use of its geological heritage. This article aims to evaluate the most relevant geosites in the province of Chimborazo (Ecuador), applying the Spanish Inventory of Sites of Geological Interest (IELIG, in Spanish) method, and proposing alternatives for geotourism development in the studied area. The methodological process was based on: (i) the inventory and preliminary selection of geosites; (ii) a semi-quantitative geosite assessment and proposal of travel itineraries for geotourism; and (iii) the application of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) matrix to establish geotourism development strategies within a framework of sustainability. The global assessment of scientific, tourist, and academic interests demonstrates that 25% of the 20 evaluated geosites have very high interest and 75% have high interest. The top three geosites with the highest degrees of interest are the Chimborazo Volcano, known as 'Earth's Closest Point to the Sun', the Pallatanga geological fault, and the geosite named Comunidad Cacha. The SWOT analysis reveals that travel itineraries that combine cultural heritage elements and geosites could offer a real alternative for the region's sustainable development through geotourism.
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Quality index
Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel
The work has been published in the journal Sustainability due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency Scopus (SJR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2021, it was in position , thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Geography, Planning and Development.
From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from World Citations from Scopus Elsevier, it yields a value for the Field-Weighted Citation Impact from the Scopus agency: 1.81, which indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: ESI Nov 14, 2024)
This information is reinforced by other indicators of the same type, which, although dynamic over time and dependent on the set of average global citations at the time of their calculation, consistently position the work at some point among the top 50% most cited in its field:
- Field Citation Ratio (FCR) from Dimensions: 34.37 (source consulted: Dimensions Jul 2025)
Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-07-18, the following number of citations:
- WoS: 14
- Scopus: 36
Impact and social visibility
Leadership analysis of institutional authors
This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: Ecuador.
the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been BORJA BERNAL, CESAR PATRICIO.