Comparative carbon footprint assessment of agricultural and tourist locations in Thailand

Abstract

Many locations in the world have been changing their main economic activity from agriculture to tourism pursuing more favorable opportunities for their development. Such a change in economic structure also leads to a significant alteration in the provincial greenhouse gas emissions. In order to investigate these differences, this study compares the greenhouse gases emitted from the major human activities in agriculture and tourism-based provinces. For this purpose, Phuket and Phayao provinces in Thailand were chosen as representatives for tourism and agriculture, respectively. Environmental and economic performances of other tourist and agricultural areas in different countries were also presented to examine commonalities and differences. It was found that in the agricultural provinces, the major part of greenhouse gas emissions came from rice cultivation, while in the tourist provinces, from the energy sector. The comparative results among several locations show that the tourist areas (especially urban-tourism-based areas) mostly had a higher eco-efficiency due to the large income from tourism and other services. They also had higher greenhouse gas indices than agricultural areas, due to energy consumption. The performance of agriculture-and-tourism-based provinces was outstanding with the lowest average carbon footprint per capita while not performing badly on the other indices, partly due to a decrease in biomass burning. At a time when global warming is the major world problem, agri-tourism can be considered to be an optimal choice and direction for the sustainable development of both agricultural and tourist provinces.