Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2015, Vol. 70 ›› Issue (1): 85-96.doi: 10.11821/dlxb201501007

• Orginal Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Phenological basis for determination of ornamental tourism season in China

Zexing TAO1,2, Quansheng GE1, Huanjiong WANG1,2, Junhu DAI1   

  1. 1. Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China
    2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2014-08-20 Revised:2014-10-07 Online:2015-01-20 Published:2015-01-20
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.41030101.No.41171043;National Basic Research Program of China, No.2012CB955304, Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, N.XDA05090301

Abstract:

Many plants have high ornamental value during specific phenophases, such as first leaf, flowering and leaf coloring. Thus, plant phenology correlates highly with seasonal aspects of landscape. Studying the determination of ornamental tourism season and its temporal and spatial patterns could provide tourism management departments and tourists with theoretical basis on tourism arrangement. Based on phenological data of 3 phenophases (first leaf date, full flower date, end of coloring date) and corresponding meteorological data at 12 sites in China, we divided the ornamental tourism season (including starting date, optimal tourism date and end date) by applying phenological frequency distribution method. The trend of optimal tourism date over the past 50 years was also analyzed. The results showed that: (1) The optimal tourism date, ranged from March 16 (Guilin) to May 5 (Harbin) for first leaf, April 3 (Kunming) to May 24 (Mudanjiang) for full flowering, October 1 (Mudanjiang) to November 30 (Shanghai) for leaf coloring. The optimal tourism date of first leaf and full flower was positively associated with latitude, while that of leaf coloring was negatively correlated with latitude. (2) The optimal tourism date of first leaf and full flower exhibited significant advancing trend of 1.6 days/decade over the past 50 years in Beijing and Xi'an, while that of leaf coloring showed significant delaying trend (Beijing, 1.6 days/decade; Xi'an, 2.1 days/decade). (3) The ornamental tourism season was significantly associated with temperature of each site. Optimal tourism date of first leaf and full flowering advanced by 4.02 days and 4.04 days per 1°C increase in spring (March-May) temperature, respectively. Optimal tourism date of leaf coloring showed significant positive correlation with September-November temperature and the spatial sensitivity was 2.98 days/°C.

Key words: phenology, vegetation landscape, ornamental tourism season, temperature change in different vegetation regions