RESEARCH ON CARBON DISTRIBUTION IN NATURAL SCENIC AREA

Abstract

By calculating carbon sink of vegetation in a natural scenic area and tourist carbon footprint, carbon distribution load rate, carbon distribution equilibrium degree and carbon distribution order degree were introduced to study the carbon distribution order in a scenic area quantitatively. Then Simulink was used to simulate the scenic area model to get the value of carbon distribution load rate, carbon distribution equilibrium degree. On the basis of the carbon distribution situation, managerial staffs of the scenic area could modify tourists’ touring routes to realize an equilibrium state of carbon distribution order and ultimately make sustainable development come true. INTRODUCTION The definition of “low carbon tourism” was officially put forward in a report “move forward low carbon travel and low carbon tourism” at World Economic Forum in 2009. Low carbon tourism is a tourism development model that on the premise of continuous tourism development, carbon emission can be lowered, energy consumption can be reduced during travel by “system adjustment” “technology innovation” “traditional concept transformation” to finally realize sustainable development[Xie Zhihan,2013]. In recent years, researches on low carbon tourism emerged in endlessly. [James E.S. Higham,2011], [Andrew,2010] Hares et al. studied the effect of travel by air to CO2 emission and climate change. [Becken,2004]discussed tourists’ cognitive condition on the offset effect of climate change and forest carbon sink to CO2 emission. [Kuo. N, 2009]adopted LCA ( a Life Cycle Assessment) to conduct quantitative research on tourism energy use, gre\en house gas emission, waste water and solid waste. [Becken,2002] tried top-down and bottom-up approaches to adjust account on tourism carbon footprint in New Zealand. [Barr S,2010] built a low carbon evaluation index system to apply various methods to the evaluation of tourism low carbon degree. BASIC CONCEPTS Drawing on the definition of forest carbon sink, in a natural scenic area, carbon sink means vegetation’s ability to absorb and fix CO2 in itself. The volume of forest carbon sink(volume of the absorbed CO2) in a time unit reflects the forest’s carbon sink ability[Dong Yifei,2013]. The total carbon sink volume in a time unit is the sum of products of vegetation area multiplies per unit vegetation’s absorbed CO2 volume in a time unit. Specifically, if there are m kinds of vegetation in a scenic area, and the fixed carbon sink of each vegetation in a time unit is , the plantation area of each vegetation is , then the total carbon sink volume in a time unit is recorded as C, and C is: C= (1) According to the life cycle method of carbon footprint evaluation, tourists’ carbon footprint refers to the consumed carbon volume during the whole trip either produced by a traveling group or individual tourist. In a natural scenic area, the major influential element for carbon distribution changes is tourists’ carbon emission during the travel, and it includes two aspects: carbon emission from the transportation as well as from the tourists’ breath. This paper has studied the carbon footprint in transportation, and the volume of the produced CO2 by tourist transportation was recorded as t Q , International Conference on Applied Science and Engineering Innovation (ASEI 2015) © 2015. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 1992 . . . t i i i i Q D n β α =∑ (2) t Q refers to CO2 emission volume of transportation tool i ; i D refers to the driving distance of the transportation tool i ; i n refers to the number of i ; i α is the CO2 emission coefficient(kg/MJ) of i’s consumed energy; and i β (MJ/ unit.km) is the energy consumption of per unit i. In line with the carbon footprint study of transportation, a formula to show an individual tourist’s transportation carbon emission volume t Q′ in a time unit could be gained. t Q′ = 1 m i i i i i=1 . . .