Abstract
Abstract. The successful bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics (Beijing 2022, officially known as the XXIV Olympic Winter Games) has greatly stimulated Chinese enthusiasm towards winter sports participation. Consequently, the Chinese ski industry is rapidly booming due to enormous market demand and government support. However, investing in ski areas in unreasonable locations will cause problems from an economic perspective (in terms of operation and management) as well as geographical concerns (such as environmental degradation). Therefore, evaluating the suitability of a ski area based on scientific metrics has become a prerequisite for the sustainable development of the ski industry. In this study, we evaluate the locational suitability of ski areas in China by integrating their natural and socioeconomic conditions using a linearly weighted method based on geographic information system (GIS) spatial analysis combined with remote sensing, online, and field survey data. The key indexes for evaluating natural suitability include snow cover, air temperature, topographic conditions, water resources, and vegetation, whereas socioeconomic suitability is evaluated based on economic conditions, accessibility of transportation, distance to a tourist attraction, and distance to a city. As such, metrics ranging from 0 to 1 considering both natural and socioeconomic conditions are used to define a suitability threshold for each candidate region for ski area development. A ski area is considered to be a dismal prospect when the locational integrated index is less than 0.5. The results show that 84 % of existing ski areas are located in areas with an integrated index greater than 0.5. Finally, corresponding development strategies for decision-makers are proposed based on the multicriteria metrics, which will be extended to incorporate potential influences from future climate change and socioeconomic development. However, the snowmaking model with local data should to be used to further analyze the suitability for a specific ski area.
Highlights
Ski tourism, as a major component of winter sports and tourism, creates great opportunities for business and promotes regional economic development (Eadington and Redman, 1991)
The results show that the total weight of natural suitability (0.52) is higher than that of socioeconomic suitability (0.48), which indicates that natural conditions have a greater impact on the development of ski areas than socioeconomic conditions
The results show that the 5S-graded ski areas are clustered in areas with high integrated suitability values, which are mainly distributed in high-latitude regions, such as northeast China, the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, and Xinjiang Province; the 4S-graded and 3S-graded ski areas are distributed around Beijing and the marginal zone of the Tibetan Plateau; and the 2S-graded and 1S-graded ski areas are mainly located in southern China, the North China Plain, and western Xinjiang Province (Fig. 7)
Summary
As a major component of winter sports and tourism, creates great opportunities for business and promotes regional economic development (Eadington and Redman, 1991). In mountainous regions, the development of ski tourism has opened new doors for employment, which has boosted the local economy. The operation of ski areas is generally accompanied by environmental degradation, such as deforestation, vegetation destruction, and soil erosion (Burt, 2012). The construction and maintenance of ski slopes have been found to cause disturbances in mountainous regions, which have significant impacts on the ecosystem and the environment (Burt and Rice, 2009). The enlargement of ski runs and the use of artificial snow are prone to causing changes in plant species and declines in biodiversity (Wipf et al, 2005; Delgado et al, 2007), which may further increase surface runoff and soil erosion, and lead to land degradation (Risticet al., 2012). Extensive studies of lakes in northern Finland have shown that ski area operations have resulted in water contamination, such as eutrophication (Tolvanen and Kangas, 2016)
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