Research On Hainan Tourism Water Resources Carrying Capacity

Tourism water resources carrying capacity is an important restriction factor for sustainable development of tourism, also is the key and the difficulty of tourism sustainable development research.This paper constructs the tourism water resources carrying capacity theory and method comprehensively and firstly, puts forward the concept of tourism water resources, tourism water resources carrying capacity, constructs general trend method and tourism water ecological carrying capacity method based on ecological footprint theory. Tourism water resources are the total water resources quantity which can be used by tourism under the level of science and technology and in certain space-time scope. Tourism water resources carrying capacity is defined as the tourism activities scale the water resources which can be used by tourism on the premise of ecology environment healthy development and sustainable social and economic development to be coordinated (including the tourism sustainable development). It is usually described by the number of tourists that tourism water resources can accommodate. General trend method equals to the tourism water resources divided by each tourist's water consumption standard. Tourism water ecological carrying capacity method based on ecological footprint theory converts tourism available water supply and tourism water consumption into productive land area.The results of the study on the whole province and the regions in Hainan are as follows:The calculated results of General trend method show that:①Tourism available water supply of Hainan Province has increased from 48.9577 million ts in 1998 to 206.4160 million ts in 2008, the proportion of tourism available water supply to the total available water resources vary from 0.5% in 1998 to 1.23% in 2008; tourism water resources carrying capacity ranges from 17.9169 million in 1998 to 72.6141 million in 2008 in Hainan Province. Tourism water resources carrying capacity index decreases from 0.47 in 1998 to 0.28 in 2008, which is in completely bearing state.②In 2008, tourism available water supply of Sanya City, Wanning City, Haikou City take up of 65.13% of the total water supply in Hainan.; tourism water resources carrying capacity are 19.3039 million person,17.4297 million person,11.9911 million person respectively, the total of which occupies 66.15% of the total carrying capacity of the province, the proportion of carrying capacity in other regions is relatively small. The carrying capacity index of the eastern areas is larger than that in the west.The calculated results of tourism water ecological carrying capacity method based on ecological footprint theory show that:①tourism water resources carrying capacity has increased from 357285hm2 in 1998 to 1536545hm2 in 2008.Ecological surplus of tourism water resources per capita increases from 0.009hm2 in 1998 to 0.017hm2 in 2008; ecological pressure index of tourism water resources decreases from 0.12 in 1998 to 0.07 in 2008. It shows that the use level of tourism water resources in Hainan has gradually increased, the level of development and utilization is in a save state, Hainan tourism water resources has great carrying potential;②In 2008, the top three regions of tourism water resources ecological carrying capacity are 400112.97hm2 in Sanya City,337073.77hm2 in Haikou City,261631.41hm2 in Wanning City,taking up of 65.14% of the total province,the proportion of carrying capacity in other regions is relatively small. Ecological pressure index of tourism water resources varies from 0.01 to 0.2, the levels of tourism water development and utilization of regions are in a save state.The results of two methods are similar. From the conservative point, tourism water resources carrying capacity ranges from 17.6169 million in 1998 to 72.6141 million in 2008. Peak season is the dry season in Hainan Province. The main factors of spatial-temporal differences of tourism water resources carrying capacity are the total water resources and the level of tourism development.Based on the results above, the paper proposes the solutions to improve the tourism water carrying capacity from internal and external of the tourism industry.