Assessment of environmental carrying capacity of ecotourism in the Yellow River estuary

Abstract

Tourism environmental carrying capacity, a term born out of the booming development of the tourist industry and a basis for determining whether tourism activities negatively impact the environment, comes under the spotlight in the field of tourism research To preserve the exploitation of tourism resources in the Yellow River estuary, re-frame tourism structure and protect the environment, this paper dissected the current development and utilization of wetland tourism resources in the region and the corresponding resource advantages in virtue of SWOT and assessed the local ecotourism environmental carrying capacity by applying the evaluation model of ecotourism environmental carrying capacity. Years between 2017 and 2021 reported overweighted human social and economic activities in the Yellow River Estuary, proving the assessment outcomes. From 2017 to 2019, it dropped from 0.83 to 0.61, and then slowly and stabilized at this level. Fluctuations were found in the ecological and environmental assimilative capacity. The pollution-accepting capacity, between 2017 and 2018, increased from 1.3 to 1.8, dropped to some 0.61 from 2018 to 2019, and then rose to 1.35 by 2021. Judging from the economic growth in the area, these indicators were constantly rising. It follows that given ensuring ecological security, efforts should be doubled in studying the development of ecotourism in the Yellow River Estuary under the guidance of sustainable development theory, thereby carrying out tourism activities in phases and planned manner.