| Located in the east wing of South Asia and Eurasia continent’s inlaid handover in terms of geological structure, Hengduan Mountain, with complex geological structure and active neotectonics, is the longest, widest and most typical north-south stretching mountain range in China, plus the transition zone between east China’s Pacific Ring and west China’s Ancient Mediterranean Rim. There are mountains, canyons, glaciers and lakes. All these diverse geoscience landscapes built along different periods’ geological movements and many different types of rare animals, plants due to the special climatic conditions in Hengduan Mountain, constitute the unique landscape resources and play a pivotal role in China’s ecological security pattern. The mid-southern section of Hengduan Mountain, which stretching across Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet, is the most typical core area representing the "transverse" landforms of Hengduan Mountain. Four mountain ranges and three rivers form the world-famous "Three Parallel Rivers" area of high mountains and canyons. Special landforms and the feature of "low latitude and high altitude" benefit this area with unique physical geography conditions, magnificent biotas and diverse local cultures. As one of the most abundant geoscience landscape areas in China, this region also becomes one of the most potential districts in China’s tourism development. Its landscape resources make up the important brand appealing foundation of China’s Shangri-La ecological tourism zone. Diverse geological landscape, fragile ecological environment and undeveloped economic and social situations are the main regional features. Therefore, it is impending to promote the sustainable development of local economics and society by tourism, based on the scientific identification of regional geoscience landscape system, systematic clarification of geoscience landscape’s types, spatial distribution, characteristics, plus derivation of landscape evolution process and formation mechanism, and comprehensive evaluation of the landscape resources.Based on the existing research of Hengduan Mountain and "Three Parallel Rivers" natural heritage area in geological formations, natural landforms, ecological environment and other fields, this paper, taking for references of the theories and methodologies of tourism geology and landscape research both home and abroad, systematically analyzes the mid-southern section of Hengduan Mountain in its geoscience landscape system and forming reasons; comprehensively discusses the region’s geoscience landscape types, distribution, system, formation background and mechanism; accesses the regional geoscience landscape risk; evaluates the landscape through Delphi and AHP method comprehensively; Finally, proposes the landscape protection strategies and sustainable tourism development model of the mid-southern section, Hengduan Mountain.Through these studies, the paper provides the following conclusions:(1) The mid-southern section, with complex geological structure, diverse landscapes, obvious biodiversity and fragile ecological environment, is a typical region of Hengduan Mountain’s special geological structure and geographical environment. The north-south stretching canyons shape the unique geoscience landscape, ecological environment and cultural characteristics, which form numerous world-class tourism resources, creating the brand connotation of "China Shangri-La". In accordance with the concept of sustainability, tourism development is conducive to give play to the regional resources and brand advantages, but also the preferred path of western mountainous regions inhabited by ethnic groups for its economic and social development and environmental resources protection.(2) According to the regional tectonic framework and stratigraphic divisions, the geoscience landscape system of the mid-southern section, Hengduan Mountain, is divided into four levels:Level Ⅰ-Geoscience landscape system domain; Level Ⅱ-Geoscience landscape system; Level Ⅲ-Geoscience landscape area; Level Ⅳ-Geoscience landscape spot; specifically involving 2 geoscience landscape system domains of level I,8 geoscience landscape system of Level Ⅱ,21 geoscience landscape areas of Level Ⅲ and 165 representative Landscape spots.4 main categories,16 categories and 18 subcategories of geoscience landscape are identified according to the method used in the field of geological heritage and tourism landscape classification. The representative geoscience landscape spots mainly include: geological structures, mountain plateaus, high mountains, canyons, alpine lakes, geothermal springs, karst sinters, alpine Danxia landforms and ecological landscape.(3) According to environmental characteristics of the mid-southern section, Hengduan Mountain, this paper establishes comprehensive geoscience landscape evaluation system through the landscape character assessment, tourism development value evaluation and geoscience landscape risk assessment. Featured with "World Museum of Geology and Geomorphology, Canyon Hometown of Three Parallel Rivers", "Primitive Low-latitude Mountainous Plateau, Source of ’Shangri-La’" and "World Biological Gene Pool, Natural Alpine Fauna and Flora Garden", the geoscience landscape resources of the mid-southern section, Hengduan Mountain, include 3 types of Class Five tourism resources,8 types of Class Four tourism resources,5 types of Class Three tourism resources; Of the 21 geoscience landscape areas, there are 2 with high landscape risk level,16 with relatively high landscape risk level and only 3 with relatively low landscape risk level.(4) The study area’s rich geoscience landscape is closely related, to geological structure background of Tethys-Himalayan tectonic domain and the mid-southern section of Nujiang River, LanCangjiang River and JinShajiang River tectonic zone. Regional geological structure evolution laid the material foundation and geological environment of geoscience landscape formation within the study area. In general, the regional evolution of geological structure has experienced:Early Paleozoic Passive Continental Margin evolution stage, Late Paleozoic-Triassic Archipelago Active Margin evolution stage, Mid-Late Mesozoic Retroarc Splicing-Accretionary Orogenic evolution stage and Cenozoic Intracontinental Convergence-Conversion-Slip Orogenic evolution stage. The Indian and Eurasian plates’collision occurred in the Late Eocene caused the uplift of Tibetan Plateau. In the context of the Neotectonism, the special geoscience landscape, represented by high mountains and canyons, was formed by the exterior geological power from superposition of running water, glaciers and so on.(5) The unique geographical environment and landscape characteristics of the mid-southern section, Hengduan Mountain, determine that it has strong particularities in the protection and utilization of the regional landscape, and these particularities could arouse resonance in the protection and development of mountain landscapes in Western China. Combining landscape risk assessment, this paper analyzes the geoscience landscape vulnerability of the mid-southern section, Hengduan Mountain. On this basis, some geoscience landscape protection policies are proposed from the following perspectives:low-carbon technologies, environmental education, smart tourism platform and regional development way. Besides these policies, combined with multi-disciplinary perspective, in accordance with the mid-southern section of Hengduan Mountain’s geoscience landscape features and regional economic and social development environment characteristics, a concept of "National Park" is introduced; Based on the International Mountain Tourism Development Guidelines, with three core elements:ecological protection, tourism experience and community participation, this paper finally establishes the sustainable tourism development model, which takes "Product-Brand System" as the carrier, "Safety of tourists-Environmental Protection" as the foothold and "Landscape Protection-Community Development" as the goal. |
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