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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

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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.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Yulong Snow Mountain Glacial and Environmental Observation Station, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Shijin Wang  (王世金) & Yuanqing He  (何元庆)

  2. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Shijin Wang  (王世金)

  3. Institute of Environment and Climate Change Research in Western China, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Yuanqing He  (何元庆)

  4. Department of Geology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA

    Xiaodong Song  (宋晓东)

Authors
  1. Shijin Wang  (王世金)
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  2. Yuanqing He  (何元庆)
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  3. Xiaodong Song  (宋晓东)
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shijin Wang  (王世金).

Additional information

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 40971019, J0630966, 40801028, 90511007), the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2007CB411501), the Special Grant for Postgraduate Research, Innovation and Practice, the West Light Foundation of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. O828A11001), the Fund from the State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, the Fund from Lijiang City Government, and the Major Directionality Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. KZCX-YW-317).

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Wang, S., He, Y. & Song, X. 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. J. Earth Sci. 21, 166–178 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-010-0015-2

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