Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2019, Vol. 74 ›› Issue (8): 1663-1679.doi: 10.11821/dlxb201908013

• Culture and Tourism Geography • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Spatio-temporal evolution and impact mechanism of socio-ecological system vulnerability in poor mountainous tourist distinations: Taking Dabie Mountain Area as example

WANG Qun,YIN Mahua,YANG Xingzhu,YAO Zhaozhao   

  1. School of Geography and Tourism, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu 241002, Anhui, China
  • Received:2018-04-16 Revised:2019-06-26 Online:2019-08-25 Published:2019-08-07
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(41671136)

Abstract:

Tourism's socio-ecological vulnerability is mainly composed of social, economic, and ecological subsystems and the related changing elements from tourism development. It is an integrated manifestation of social vulnerability, economic vulnerability and ecological vulnerability. The paper, taking nine counties in the Dabie Mountain Area as case studies, proposes a socio-ecological vulnerability theoretical framework and comprehensive evaluation index combining the Social-Economic-Environment (SEE) model and the Pressure-State-Response (PSR) model. It explores the spatio-temporal evolution and mechanism that influences vulnerability in impoverished mountainous areas. Conclusions are drawn as follows: (1) During the period 2009-2016, the regional system vulnerability composite index fluctuated, declining from 0.52 to 0.41. The index for the economic subsystem continued to decline, and the index for the social and ecological subsystem kept stable. The contribution to a composite index for a regional system reached 76%, and the regional system had a relatively low degree of vulnerability and tended toward a positive direction. (2) The value of low vulnerability counties fluctuated and declined, and the coefficient of variation is lower, while the value of high vulnerability counties in 2013 began to decrease gradually and evolved into a lower degree of vulnerability; the coefficient of variation is larger. For the entire region, the spatial differences of vulnerability in the county experienced a wave-shaped dynamic change. Finally, the differences reached the minimum in 2013, which led to an aggravation of regional differences. (3) The main factors affecting tourism socio-ecological vulnerability have already changed from the growth of tourism income, the proportion of industrial added value in GDP, the urban-rural income gap, the proportion of tourism income to GDP, and the ratio of agricultural acreage to the density of the tourism economy and tourists, and the population urbanization rate. Entire regional vulnerability has already evolved from state-dominated to pressure-dominated.

Key words: tourism socio-ecological system, vulnerability, Dabie Mountain Area