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Assessing the environmental impact of China’s tourism activities: a tourism heat footprint method

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Abstract

Numerous research studies have examined carbon emissions generated from tourism activities. However, the environmental impact of anthropogenic heat release has not attracted researchers’ attention. We apply the tourism heat footprint method to assess the environmental impact of China’s tourism activities. The results indicate that (1) China’s tourism heat footprint increased from 0.99 × 103 w/km2 in 1994 to 7.53 × 103 w/km2 in 2018, with an average annual growth rate of 8.82%. (2) Particularly during high seasons, the tourism heat footprint increases sharply; tourism transportation accounts for the highest proportion of the tourism heat footprint, ranging from 36.50 to 69.07% from 1994 to 2018. (3) The rapid growth in arrivals and transportation-related changes have contributed to the rapid growth of the tourism heat footprint. Advances in science and technology, laws and regulations, environmental pollution constraints, and national macroeconomic policy have helped reduce the tourism heat footprint. Generally, tourism activities caused by a significant increase in income are the root cause of tourism heat footprint growth. (4) Finally, some suggestions, including cultivating a low-energy tourism culture, improving energy efficiency, implementing low-energy policies, and performing spatial-temporal monitoring, are proposed. This paper expands sustainable tourism’s analytical research and enriches the tourism footprint family evaluation process.

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All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 41501159, 41801137; China Postdoctoral Science Foundation under Grant 2014M560731.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Territorial Economics, Shaanxi University of Technology, Hanzhong, 723000, China

    Shuxin Wang

  2. Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Shuxin Wang

  3. School of Economics and Law, Shaanxi University of Technology, Hanzhong, 723000, China

    Shuxin Wang, Pingping Tang & Jiamei Li

  4. College of Civil and Architectural Engineering, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan, 063210, China

    Weihong Cao

  5. School of Historical Culture and Tourism Management, Shaanxi University of Technology, Hanzhong, 723000, China

    Jiankuo Du & Hengyang Fu

  6. School of Tourism and Cuisine, Harbin University of Commerce, Harbin, 150076, China

    Zi Tang

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Contributions

SW was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. WC completed the literature review. JD analyzed the data regarding the tourism heat footprint. PT collected the data regarding the tourism energy consumption. HF assisted in project planning. ZT participated in the writing. JL assisted in the editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Shuxin Wang.

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Wang, S., Cao, W., Du, J. et al. Assessing the environmental impact of China’s tourism activities: a tourism heat footprint method. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 61176–61188 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15082-z

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