Analysis On The Impacts Of Tourism Activities On The Ecological Footprint In Sanqing Mountain Scenic Area

In recent decades,the rapid development of the tourism industry has dramatically promoted regional economic prosperity.However,the intense tourism activities and the overdevelopment of scenic spots have also induced environmental pollution and ecological damage,which have brought great pressure and challenges to regional sustainable development.Exploring the changes in the tourism ecological environment system and its relationship with human tourism activities is of great significance for the regional ecological civilization.The ecological footprint is an effective method to study the degree of global or regional sustainable development.Ecological footprint reflects the consumption intensity of natural resources in the area and the generation of waste that needs to be absorbed by the surrounding environment,which indicates the human needs and consumption of natural ecosystems.Therefore,it is of great significance to study the impact of tourism activities on the ecological footprint in the scenic spots area,and formulate corresponding countermeasures for sustainable tourism development.The development of smart tourism and satellite remote sensing technology makes it possible to obtain large-scale continuous ecological environment and tourism data,which provides critical support for the ecological footprint study in the whole scenic spots region.Mountain scenic spots are one of the primary scenic spot types in China.Compared with other scenic spot types,mountain scenic spots only rely on natural landscapes,and the negative impact of tourism activities on the ecological environment is particularly more significant in the area.As a result,we take the typical mountainous scenic spot,Sanqing Mountain,as a case area,to research the impact of tourism activities on the ecological footprint,combining the multi-source heterogeneous data(satellite remote sensing data,meteorological observation data,socioeconomic statistics of scenic spots and surrounding areas,etc.)and the 3S technology and tourism ecological footprint theory,The ecological footprint is used to characterize the ecological environment in the scenic spot and its surrounding areas,and its annual variations,key influencing factors,and future trends were analyzed.What is more,the relevant suggestions and countermeasures for sustainable tourism development in the Sanqing Mountain scenic area are provided from different perspectives,based on the analysis results.The main results are as follows:(1)Based on the 3S technology and the theory of ecological tourism footprint,the tourism ecological environment factors and sustainable development indicators in the Sanqing Mountain Scenic Area are extracted,as well as some social-economic factors.The results show that the regional economic development and other social-economic factors in the scenic area have basically increased in the last 15 years.The tourist arrivals and incomes have maintained a rapid growth trend,indicating the rapid development of regional tourism.The forest area has gradually increased in the past15 years,as well as the urban areas.The vegetation coverage and climate comfort index showed noticeable seasonal variations and relatively stable inter-annual changes.Although there is a tourism ecological surplus in the study area,which indicates the tourism industry is still sustainable,the per capita tourism ecological surplus shows a decreasing trend year by year.So the sustainable development of the regional tourism industry is getting worse and worse in the last decades.(2)The main driving factors for the variation of tourist ecological footprint in the Sanqing Mountain Scenic Area are analyzed based on the principal component analysis method from 2005 to 2019.The curve fitting model is applied to predict and evaluate the per capita ecological surplus in the future.Based on the changes of ecological tourism footprint from 2005 to 2019,the principal component analysis is carried out with natural and socioeconomic factors.The results indicated that economic and social factors such as economic development level,fixed asset investment capacity,industrial support capacity,and tourism resource attraction capacity are the main drivers.The exponential model is the optimal curve fitting model for the per capita tourism ecological surplus in the study area,and it indicates that the sustainable development of tourism in the study area is poor,with the per capita ecological surplus tend to be zero within the future ten years.The natural ecosystem resources will be challenging to meet the needs of human tourism development.(3)Based on the above analysis and prediction results,and combined with the theory of tourist ecological footprint,we provided three suggestions for how to effectively control the growth of tourist ecological footprint and reduce the negative impact of tourism activities on the ecological environment in Sanqing Mountain Scenic Area.First of all,it is necessary to increase the publicity and promote tourists’ ecological environmental protection awareness;and the second suggestion is to establish a coordination mechanism to encourage community residents to participate in the construction of scenic spots actively;and the last one is to adhere to scientific planning to create high-quality ecological tourist attractions.