Nature tourism assessment in the Icelandic Master Plan for geothermal and hydropower development. Part II: assessing the impact of proposed power plants on tourism and recreation

Abstract

The Icelandic government is carrying out a project called Master Plan for geothermal and hydropower development where all major potential hydropower and geothermal power plant projects in Iceland are being evaluated and ranked. One part of the project is presented here, the effect of power plants on tourism and recreation. The impact of the proposed power plant is considered to depend on both the present value of the affected region and the impact on the region. To get a single score for the impact that takes into account both these factors, the so-called impact coefficient is defined. It is obtained by multiplying the present value of the tourism region with the impact the power plant has on the region. The impact coefficient for a particular power plant is computed as the sum of the impact coefficients for all regions affected by the plant. The impact coefficient is the highest in valuable tourist areas where the impact is large and where the affected area covers many tourism regions. The results show that wilderness areas are very sensitive to power plant developments and that the largest effects would be in wilderness areas which are already of great importance for tourism and recreation.