Abstract
As an important site for tourism activities, mountainous areas may generate greater tourism risks than plain areas due to potential natural disasters, social issues, scenic area management, and tourist behavior. Western Sichuan Plateau is mostly mountainous area and tourism is its pillar industry, Therefore, the assessment of the tourism risks on the Western Sichuan Plateau is of academic value and practical significance. In this study, we use statistical and remote sensing data, fishbone diagram, and the entropy weighting method to construct a tourism risk evaluation model and classify risks into different levels, and we also use a geographic information system (GIS) for spatial mapping to quantify and spatialize the results. The objectives are 1) to identify the risk sources in the Western Sichuan Plateau and analyze their causal mechanisms, precisely reveal the distribution of tourism risks in the study area; 2) improve the precision of tourism risk evaluation in scenic areas and analyze the causes and spatial distribution patterns of tourism risks and propose targeted management measures. This study found that the evaluation results of the four elements of hazard, exposure, vulnerability, and disaster prevention and mitigation capacity on the Western Sichuan Plateau showed significant spatial variability, depending on the natural conditions and the quantity difference of tourism resources in different regions. In addition, the tourism risk is low in most areas of the Western Sichuan Plateau, and disaster prevention and mitigation capacity is higher in areas with high tourism risk where attractions are densely populated and tourism is concentrated. Our study can provide a reference for future analyses of tourism risks in mountainous tourist areas such as in China and worldwide.
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Availability of Data/Materials: The data in this article were mainly acquired from the Sichuan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism (http://wlt.sc.gov.cn/) accessed on 28-April-2022, Ministry of Natural Resources (https://www.mnr.gov.cn/) accessed on 15-May-2022; Department of Transportation of Sichuan Provincial (http://jtt.sc.gov.cn/) accessed on 15-May-2022; Sichuan Province Culture and Tourism Resources Cloud Data Website (http://zyy.tsichuan.com/zypc/generalScreenWidget/listNoLogin) accessed on 21-May-2022; Sichuan Earthquake administration (https://www.scdzj.gov.cn/) accessed on 26-May-2022; China Meteorological Data Network (https://data.cma.cn/) accessed on26- May-2022; Statistical Yearbook Sharing Platform (https://www.yearbookchina.com) accessed on 26- May-2022; Geospatial Data Cloud (https://www.gscloud.cn/) accessed on 27-June-2022
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This research reported in this manuscript was funded by Social Science Foundation of Liaoning Province (L21BJY028). The author of this article thanks the School of Geography of Liaoning Normal University for their assistance in developing this research.
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ZHANG Yu-Qing: contributed to all aspects of this work; WANG Yue-Lin: wrote the main manuscript text; LI Hong: performed the experiments and analyzed the data; LI Xue-Ming: provided modifications for this study. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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Zhang, YQ., Wang, YL., Li, H. et al. Risk assessment of mountain tourism on the Western Sichuan Plateau, China. J. Mt. Sci. 20, 3360–3375 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-022-7884-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-022-7884-6