Impacts of climate warming on alpine glacier tourism and adaptive measures: A case study of Baishui Glacier No. 1 in Yulong Snow Mountain, Southwestern China

Abstract

Alpine glaciers usually feature with best hydrothermal condition in mountain climate, and present beautiful glacier scenery, various glacier landforms, rich biodiversity, and easier accessibility, compared with continental glaciers or ice sheets. Nevertheless, Alpine glaciers are more sensitive to climate warming, and climate warming has seriously affected Alpine glaciers and surrounding environment. The quality and attractiveness of Alpine glaciers to tourism has been and will continue to be diminished with tourists’ visitation and local economic development. At present, it has become a primary problem that Alpine glacier tourism adapts to climate warming. Based on this reason, the purpose of this article is to take Baishui (白水) Glacier No. 1 as an example to outline the possible impacts of climate warming on Alpine glacier tourism and put forward some adaptive measures and strategies aligned with climate warming. Specific measures are as follows: (1) optimize the space layout of glacier tourism area; (2) improve glacier tourism and environmental protection planning; (3) adopt multidimensional protective measures; (4) strengthen scientific research of glacier and environment protection; (5) develop glacier tourism products by multi-directions; (6) integrate regional tourism resources; (7) reinforce public environmental education.

Keywords

Alpine glacier / global warming / Baishui Glacier No. 1 / impact and adaptation

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