Tourism and land transformation: A case study of the Li River Basin, Guilin, China

Abstract

Land-use change is intertwined with tourism because land is used as a resource for human activities. Land-use change also provides an opportunity to evaluate the status of the eco-environment. Understanding the relationship between tourism and land use change would help to predict the effect of tourism on land use and encourage sustainable tourism development. Using the Li River Basin as a case study, a hybrid approach using multilevel modeling and logistic regressions was employed to analyze the distribution of land-use-change between 1989 and 2010 to examine potential driving factors. Results reveal that rapid tourism development and construction expansion expose this area to risk of deforestation and forest degradation. Construction increased by 141% between 1989 and 2000 and by 195% between 2000 and 2010. The primary driving force for construction expansion shifted from population growth between 1989 and 2000 to investment growth after 2000. New construction primarily occurred on crop and woodlands areas, with shares of 81.25% and 6.38%, respectively, between 1989 and 2000, and with shares of 57.79% and 15.29%, respectively, between 2000 and 2010. Moreover, these drastic increases in construction also led to frequent transitions between croplands, woodlands, and grasslands. Traits including distances to urban areas and roads and scenic locations exerted significant effects on land-use change. Woodland regrowth in the areas that surround scenic locations consisted of fluctuating woodlands, whereas stable woodland regrowth was often absent in these areas. Likewise, permanent woodland clearing tended to be closed to near scenic locations. That is, construction at scenic locations negatively affected forest conservation in the Li River Basin.