| With the improvement of the living standard of the people,the development of the tourism industry is booming day by day.Xi'an city is one of the four ancient capitals of China.Recently,the government of Xi'an city has seized the strategic opportunity of"Belt and Road"and vigorously promoted global tourism.However,Xi'an is a typical dry city of northwestern China,and its water resources are very scarce.The development of tourism has put some pressure on local water resources utilization.This study firstly reviewed the previous and existing water footprint theory,then determined the concept and evaluation method of tourism water footprint as well as the accounting framework.We have constructed an accounting model for the tourism water footprint that is consistent with the reality of Xi'an city,and calculated the water footprint of each account of Xi'an city's tourism in the period of2008-2017 from the various perspectives of fresh water,grey water and indirect water.The water resources utilization evaluation index,the ecological security index and the sustainable utilization index of water resources are used to evaluate the accounting results,and the impact of the tourism development of Xi'an city on local water resources is analyzed.Finally,we analyzed the dynamic changes of the tourism water footprint of Xi'an city under the long-term time series,and provided some suggestions and policies for the sustainable development of water resources of Xi'an city's tourism.The results showed that:(1)The total amount of tourism water footprint in Xi'an in 2008-2017 has continued to rise.It reached a maximum in 2017,with a total of 56,751,440 m~3,and the per capita tourism water footprint was 3.13 m~3,which is 1.68 times per capita water footprint in Xi'an.It shows that tourism is a high-water consumption industry.An analysis of the proportion of the water footprint of each sub-account indicated that the food and beverage links consumed the most water resources and the transportation link did the least.(2)The change of indirect water footprint in 2008-2017 is basically consistent with the trend of total water footprint,indicating that indirect water footprint is the most important component of tourism water footprint.Indirect water consumption is mainly from the catering and shopping sectors,which refers to the amount of virtual water implied by energy,food and commodities.The proportion of physical water is small,which is mainly composed of the fresh water resources consumed by the scenic greening and the grey water footprint.(3)The change trend of per capita tourism water footprint in Xi'an in 2008-2017 is basically consistent with the trend of economic benefits of water footprint,and the overall trend is downward,indicating that the amount of water resources consumed to create the same tourism value is decreasing.The utilization efficiency of tourism water resources in Xi'an is relatively high.The water scarcity of tourism showed a volatility trend,with an average of0.22 and a maximum of 0.34 in 2016,both of which were less than 1.The amount of water available to tourism in Xi'an was relatively abundant.(4)The tourism water resources pressure index of Xi'an in 2008-2017 is generally rising,with an average of 0.20 and a maximum of 0.31 in 2016,both of which are less than 1.So far,Xi'an tourism water resources utilization is in the category of ecological security.The tourism sustainable use index of Xi'an showed fluctuating changes.The tourism water resources of Xi'an city was in the sustainable utilization state in 2009-2014,and 2017.That of the years of2010,2012-2013 and 2015-2016 was in the unsustainable state. |
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