Measuring the ecological security of tourist destination:Methodology and a case study of Jiuzhaigou
旅游地生态安全测度分析——以九寨沟自然保护区为例

From the security of the relationship between human and nature,tourist ecological consumption characteristic and global climate change,this paper puts forward the conception of ecological security for tourist destination,and defines the conception in two ways by broad sense and narrow sense.Based on the theory and method of ecological footprint,it puts forward the ecological security measuring model,and taking the Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve(JNNR) as an example,it calculates and analyses the ecological security index and the intra and inter-regional impact on the JNNR in 2004.Four characteristics have been summarized:(1)The total tourist ecological footprint of the JNNR reaches 163514.0248hm2 in 2004,an increase of 115.1% in contrast to that of 2002;the per capita tourist ecological footprint is 0.105190274hm2 in 2004,an increase of 72.44%;the per capita residents ecological footprint of the JNNR is 0.994925hm2 in 2004,up by 3.47% compared with that of 0.9616hm2 in 2002.This indicates that tourism developed has produced some influence on the resident's consumption models.(2)The total tourist wastes ecological footprint of the JNNR is 46960.5678 hm2 in 2004,the per capita is 0.044543055 hm2,about 42.35% of the total tourist ecological footprint in 2004,and about 99.84% of the total tourist wastes ecological footprint are the CO2 emissions by the tourists.With the global climate change boiling up,the strict requirement of emission rights of CO2 and by international society,the rapidly developed trade market of CO2,and the high sensitivities to the CO2 about landscape of Jiuzhaigou,monitoring and research into various changes of CO2 for tourist destinations should be enhanced.(3)The ecological security index of the JNNR is from 1.093158 to 1.159388 in 2004,it is thus ecologically secure now,but the narrow sense of tourist destination ecological security index is higher than the broad sense,indicating that tourism development has not only exerted intra-regional but also interregional impact.(4)The increasing number of tourists,travel distance of tourists,changing consumption model of residents,and the increasing dependency on natural resources by local residents are the main factors influencing the ecological security of the JNNR in the future.