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When wells run dry: Water and tourism in Nicaragua

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Abstract

This article uses a political ecology approach to examine the relationship between tourism and groundwater in southwest Nicaragua. Tourism remains a growing industry; however, adequate provisions of freshwater are necessary to sustain the production and reproduction of tourism and it remains uncertain if groundwater supplies can keep pace with demand. Integrating the findings of groundwater monitoring, geological mapping, and ethnographic and survey research from a representative stretch of Pacific coastline, this paper shows that diminishing recharge and increased groundwater consumption is creating a conflict between stakeholders with various levels of knowledge, power, and access. It concludes that marginalization is attributable to the nexus of a political promotion of tourism , poorly enforced state water policies, insufficient water research, and climatic variability.

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... Despite these ideological underpinnings and resulting legislation, water insecurity has become a reality for rural residents in coastal southwest Nicaragua [4]. Reasons for insecurity are a combination of physical, social, economic, and political factors and have been documented elsewhere [5]. ...
... For example, national water laws mediate the experience of "local" water use, access, and distribution; these laws thus merit attention even in contexts that appear insulated from national legislation and political governing centers, as is often the case for rural settings. Moreover, and as this article demonstrates, situations of water insecurity are not always defined by the physical amount of water available via natural processes, but are more often the result of a convergence of issues reflecting power dynamics and relations based upon race, ethnicity, gender, class and/or political systems [5,[12][13][14][15][16]. ...
... In some respects, water laws fall short because they fail to be implemented adequately. This has been well-documented in the Nicaraguan case [5,44,46,48]. (See [49] for discussion of the challenges associated with wastewater governance across Latin America). Indeed, some components of new legal frameworks may go entirely unimplemented owing to issues of political will and/or inadequate expenditure of public resources which tend already to be stretched thin [50]. ...
Article
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Despite being a water-rich country, Nicaragua struggles to secure clean water access for many of its residents. In addition to distributional and water quality issues, a prolonged drought affecting all regions of the country has compounded preexisting governance challenges to ensuring rural water needs. This article focuses on a rural community along the southwest Pacific Coast of Tola, Nicaragua, where tourism development and drought converge to produce and exacerbate water insecurity. This article examines this water insecurity in the context of two recent national water laws in Nicaragua (passed in 2007 and 2010 respectively) that sought to provide a more comprehensive legal framework for freshwater water governance. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews and groundwater and meteorological data, we contend that water laws have not effectively mediated the hydrological effects of prolonged drought and tourism development, resulting in pronounced water insecurity for local populations in Tola. We cast the findings of this research as relevant to other water insecure areas in Latin America where industry development and weak policy implementation impact the creation and resolution of local water security—including insecurity compounded by increased climatic variability.
... Island tourism development is promoted to boost local economic growth, frequently with increased use of natural resources such as water and land as well as coastal and marine environments for the construction of facilities that serve tourism activities (Azam et al., 2018;Becken, 2014;Cole, 2012;Lithgow et al., 2019;Yang et al., 2016). Water resource is a key source for the tourism industry LaVanchy, 2017), but are often in limited supply on islands (Cole, 2012;Koç et al., 2017). The current sustainable island development tools aim to identify environmental carrying capacity with the use of social, economic, ecological, and geological dimensions as generic indicators to environmental quality. ...
... If this shortage persists, tourists may potentially avoid or leave the island as water is essential to the tourism industry (LaVanchy, 2017). Likewise, if the groundwater extraction Table 2 Status of 14 designated tourism sites as of April 2019, with respect to algal diversity and potential threats. ...
Article
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Island tourism development is frequently associated with increased use of natural resources for constructing facilities that serve tourism activities. The existing island tourism tools have had limited success in ensuring sustainable island tourism development. Our knowledge of water capacity and monitoring of the algae dominated marine environment need to be expanded to ensure the sustainability. The paper uses data from Phu Quoc Island, Kien Giang, Vietnam to address these two above issues. The objective was gained through a combination of literature review, semi-structured interviews, and ecological sampling of marine algal species. The sustainability of tourism development in Phu Quoc is at risk due to inadequate focus on water resource management, poor wastewater treatment, and poor law enforcement. Inadequate water supply facilities cause water shortages, especially in the peak season, which resulted in uncontrolled groundwater extraction. Poor wastewater treatment and poor law enforcement create water quality problems in outflows causing degradation. Determination of water capacity should be prioritized and legally required as a compulsory element of sustainable island tourism development, and should guide the number of visitors and the types of tourism allowed at each site. Marine algal species should be accepted as a crucial indicator of the marine environment where algal species are dominant.
... The tourism sector attaches great importance to water resources due to its potential to revitalize and develop tourist destinations (Pueyo-Ros 2018). Under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) paradigm, sustainability of the tourism industry requires efficient and sustainable resource management (LaVanchy 2017;Balsalobre-Lorente et al. 2019). The relationship between water scarcity and tourism has been analyzed since understanding the intrinsic value of this resource. ...
... This issue has led to various studies on the analysis of identifying practices and initiatives for sustainable management of water resources via tourism. Consequently, one of the main lines of tourism research focuses on the relationship between water management and sustainable tourism (Grössling et al. 2015;LaVanchy 2017). Saying this, we would like to reinstate that there is a dearth of literature on the link between tourism development and inequality in water availability. ...
Article
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This paper shows the bilateral association between tourism development and inequality in per capita availability of water. The study is conducted on the countries with high tourism receipt, and thereafter, this study shows whether the directions of tourism development in these countries are going to be sustainable or not. In order to achieve this, we have used tourism investment and tourism receipt as two indicators of tourism development and have assessed their differential impacts on the disparity in water availability by applying DOLS and causality analysis approach. Empirical results show long-run impact of tourism on inequality in per capita availability of water, along with the presence of bidirectional causal association among the tourism development and inequality parameters. This study further reveals the impact of tourism on the regional disparity in distribution of water that can appear due to the differential approach taken toward tourism development. Based on study outcomes, several policy directions where offered for the investigated blocs.
... The tourism sector attaches great importance to water resources due to its potential to revitalize and develop tourist destinations (Pueyo-Ros 2018). Under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) paradigm, sustainability of the tourism industry requires efficient and sustainable resource management (LaVanchy 2017;Balsalobre-Lorente et al. 2019). The relationship between water scarcity and tourism has been analyzed since understanding the intrinsic value of this resource. ...
... This issue has led to various studies on the analysis of identifying practices and initiatives for sustainable management of water resources via tourism. Consequently, one of the main lines of tourism research focuses on the relationship between water management and sustainable tourism ( Grössling et al. 2015;LaVanchy 2017). Saying this, we would like to reinstate that there is a dearth of literature on the link between tourism development and inequality in water availability. ...
Article
With the conflicting thoughts of Christianity, economic theory has evolved through several phases. Utility theory was developed in the background of this religious thought. Then with graduation of time, changes in organizational and societal needs catalyzed the evolution of this theory. Conflict between religious thoughts has given birth to expected utility theory. For a stint period of time both of these two theories were running in parallel. Then the conflict between the subjectivity and objectivity made a branch of utilitarian economists to move out from their traditional school of thoughts and merge into the wave of expected utility theorists. Development of mathematics in terms of calculus and probability also co-existed with this development. In this paper it has been tried to capture the moments of history, in terms of theoretical development of utility and expected utility theory, keeping the religious movement in background. The paper is a literature survey of the history of this theoretical economic development.
... The acquisition of land for tourism purposes can increase external influence at the expense of local communities (Wieckardt et al., 2022). Social scientists use the concepts of 'primitive accumulation' and 'accumulation by dispossession' to understand these processes (Bianchi, 2018;Devine, 2014;Fletcher, 2011;Harvey, 2004;LaVanchy, 2017). ...
Article
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Tension between nature conservation, green grabbing, land acquisition for tourism, and value grabbing highlight a significant yet understudied area: the underlying land rent mechanisms and the state's role in driving green land acquisition for tourism. Using Marxian land rent theory , we explored how 'state monopoly rent' is produced by tourism-induced green land acquisition and the consequent displacement and resettlement of communities in and around the Wulingyuan World Heritage. State actors actively acquired land and land use rights for tourism development to maximise the rent gap despite, and perhaps because of, national nature conservation priorities and restrictions. State actors are a key player in the political economy of tourism by directly capitalizing on potential land rent in China.
... Hotels, and the tourism industry more broadly, will be forced to contend with such extreme droughts and their economic consequences on a more frequent basis. Additionally, the climatic forecast of the Western Cape mirrors trends in other popular tourism destinations with warm climates and natural tendencies for drought (LaVanchy, 2017;Scott, Hall, & Gössling, 2019). This future of increased risk of climate shock will require hotel managers to implement innovative strategies to lower their water footprint. ...
Article
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The large water demands of tourism threaten the sector's economic viability during climate shocks. Cape Town, South Africa provides an example where the threat of a water "Day Zero" in 2018 caused substantial losses in tourist arrivals, revenues, and subsequent job securities. However, Cape Town's tourism industry also contributed to unprecedented water conservation across the city. Through qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with hotel employees in Cape Town (n = 18), this paper reveals how internal conservation campaigns not only reduced water use, but also helped mitigate economic impacts, eased political tensions, and upheld their excellent standing among visitors. Our results suggest that during severe water crises, hotel managers can model and enforce water conservation efforts while maintaining customer satisfaction.
... Además, las regulaciones que se generen también podrían estar orientadas al establecimiento de impuestos, contribuciones o un régimen sancionatorio que castigue o multe a aquellas empresas a las que se les demuestre que hacen uso irracional del recurso hídrico, pero que también incentive a aquellas que lo gestionan favorablemente(Li, 2018).Sin embargo, casos como el de Labuan Bajo (Indonesia) han demostrado que la gestión pública del agua no siempre es eficiente, puesto que en dicho territorio se han presentado situaciones relacionadas con la excesiva mercantilización de recurso hídrico, corrupción y falta de planificación urbana, ocasionando problemas de desabastecimiento e inequidad en el suministro de agua(Cole, 2017). Algo similar sucede en Nicaragua, en donde existe un estrecho vínculo entre el turismo y la política en lo que se refiere al suministro de agua, encontrando que solo algunos participantes privilegiados son los que tienen garantizado su acceso constante al preciado líquido, mientras que para el resto de la población el acceso a este recurso resulta ser insuficiente(LaVanchy, 2017). En esa misma línea, Hernández Peñaloza et al. (2020) explicaron cómo en el municipio de Ixtapan de la Sal (México) se ha colocado en riesgo el desarrollo de la actividad turística por la creación de un monopolio alrededor de la administración del agua, dado que se les otorgaron concesiones a empresas privadas, permitiéndoles la extracción y acumulación del líquido y limitando así el acceso de la comunidad a este recurso. ...
Article
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Este trabajo tuvo como objetivo analizar los efectos ocasionados por el desabastecimiento o insuficiencia en el suministro de agua potable en la actividad turística de un territorio costero, tomando como caso de estudio a las empresas dedicadas a actividades de alojamiento y de expendio de alimentos y bebidas en la ciudad de Santa Marta, Colombia, durante el año 2021. El método utilizado tuvo enfoque mixto y alcance descriptivo, mientras que los instrumentos implementados consistieron en la recolección de información empírica a través de la aplicación de cuestionarios a una muestra representativa de los actores involucrados, así como la triangulación de los datos con fuentes teóricas obtenidas por medio de revisión documental. Los resultados mostraron, por un lado, que las causas de esta problemática se relacionan principalmente con la falta de inversión estatal, así como con la existencia de conexiones fraudulentas a los canales de suministro de agua; mientras que, entre los efectos económicos más significativos, se destaca el incremento de los costos de operación para las empresas turísticas hasta en un 40%, representados en la adquisición de agua a vehículos tipo cisterna o ‘carrotanques’ y compra de equipos de bombeo. Igualmente, este estudio concluye que la problemática descrita coloca al territorio analizado en una condición de vulnerabilidad mayor ante las consecuencias generadas por el cambio climático y el calentamiento global, en el que las sequías agravan el problema de disponibilidad del recurso hídrico. Además, resulta interesante el hecho de que las consecuencias del desabastecimiento de agua en los turistas fuesen menos significativas de lo que se esperaba al inicio de la investigación, lo que se suma a la ausencia de posiciones autocríticas identificadas en los representantes de las empresas turísticas en cuanto a su responsabilidad para atender o mitigar esta problemática.
... Although tourism only increases global water consumption by less than 1 % and this is not forecasted to increase significantly in the future, an increase in tourism may strain water resources in regions of the world where tourism is highly concentrated (Gössling et al., 2012). Regions like Nicaragua (LaVanchy, 2017) and islands such as Bali (Cole, 2012;Sudiajeng, Mudina, Sudiarsa, Tapayasa, & Supart, 2017), and Zanzibar (Gössling, 2001) whose economies rely heavily on tourism already show evidence of unsustainable groundwater use. Further, in many of these regions where the tourism sector out-competes residents for water resources, some of the negative effects may not be equally distributed, with lower-income residents (Stonich, 1998) and women (Cole, 2017) potentially experiencing greater adverse outcomes. ...
Article
Many popular tourist destinations are on small islands whose resources are in limited supply, and the effects of climate change and burgeoning tourism tend to worsen the outlook. In this study, we identify the relationship between tourism and water use on the Hawaiian island of O‘ahu. Hawai‘i closed almost entirely to tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic, which provides a unique natural experiment to study the relationship between tourism and water use. We estimate a 1 % decline in the number of tourists was associated with a 0.4 % to 0.65 % lower water use in the hotel sector. However, no such relationship was found in the Airbnb market, which we hypothesize is due to work-from-home arrangements in the residential sector during the pandemic.
... 。旅游地的水资源利用就是一个突出的例子,游客的用水量是当 地居民用水量的 3~15 倍 [11,12] ,这极大地增加了目的地的供水压力。环境承载力、生态足 迹、碳足迹等概念的提出 [13] ,使旅游地自然、经济和社会环境系统能够承受的旅游活动 强度阈值得以被测算,为旅游开发和发展政策的制定提供重要依据。但此类研究主要集 中在宏观的地理区域或资源领域 [14,15] ,多侧重量化方法在不同地域背景下的适应分析 [13] , 较少关注小尺度目的地社区资源用户间的权利关系与资源实践活动,因而在应用性上有 待提升。 为探讨旅游业发展所引发的旅游地公共池塘资源的使用与治理变化及其所产生的影 响,本文选取旅游地的水资源利用与治理为研究对象,通过情境化的案例研究来提供合 理的理论解释。 1 文献回顾与分析框架 旅游业是一个典型的高需水行业 [16] 。20 世纪 60 年代起,旅游活动对水资源的影响便 引起了国外学者的关注,早期研究主要集中在旅游地水质安全、游客用水计量等方面 [17] 。 随着全球可用淡水资源的紧张以及旅游业的快速发展,水资源复杂的自然属性和突出的 公共性所带来的分配与公平问题日益凸显 [18][19][20] 。一方面,游客的人均用水量明显高于本地 居民,从而造成了水资源冲突和本地用水户边缘化的可能性 [21,22] 。研究表明旅游发展在提 高目的地的水供应需求的同时,加速了目的地水资源及供水服务的商品化与私有化进 程 [23][24][25] 。Cole [26] 从女性主义的视角出发,指出旅游使本地居民在获取水资源的劳动实践中 进一步处于弱势地位,尤其加重了女性的劳作负担。Lavanchy [27] 在尼加拉瓜的调查发 现,如果没有具体的指导性数据和政府监管,旅游开发商将无限度取用地下水以满足游 客需求,造成不可持续的水资源利用后果。另一方面,旅游业通常比其他经济部门具有 更高的购买力,尤其是在发展中国家的沿海地区或农村地区,旅游用水可以直接与农业 或生活用水进行竞争 [28,29] 。Su 等 [30] 在丽江玉湖村和文海村的考察发现,丽江古城的旅游发 展引发了农业用水向旅游用水的转移,从而加快了这两个村落社区的"去农业化"与 "去地化"进程。相较而言,国内对旅游用水的研究取向尚待丰富,既有研究大多是以虚 拟水和水足迹等定量的质量监测和数学分析方法为主 [31,32] ,侧重于从技术与应用管理的角 度去衡量和解答水资源的可持续利用问题,没有考虑到目的地社区水用户间的权利关系 以及地方传统的水资源管理制度等社会因素的影响 [33] 。在研究尺度上,亦集中于国家、 地区、城市或景区等宏观尺度 [34][35][36] ,缺少对具体的水利用实践活动的微观探析。 公共池塘资源的产权在管理以及依赖这些资源的个人、家庭和社区的福利方面发挥 着基本作用 [37] 。作为一种特殊的流动性自然资源,水权束中的权利内容可以被从国家到 个人之间的多个决策实体所共同持有,不同层级的决策实体或不同用户群体拥有水权束 中的不同部分。英国学者 Ray [38] 提出的"制度科层模型"是描述自然资源产权结构中层级 化管理关系的经典模型,李鹏等 [39] 曾以此为理论基础探讨过国有旅游资源的产权问题。 2103 37 自 然 资 源 学 报 王亚华 [40] 对 Ray 的制度科层模型进行了本土化修正,并以水权结构为研究对象 (此处的 "结构"是指各种制度安排的集合形成的"制度框架") 提出了适用于中国水资源利用情 境分析的"水权科层概念模型" 。1949 年后,历次颁布的 《中华人民共和国水法》 明确 规定我国水资源最终所有权在国家,但法律制度并未对水权具体的权利束进行细分 [41] 。 因此,关于水权定义的具体讨论有很多,适用于不同的经济情境和社会场域 [42] 。本文所 说的水权指与水资源用益 (例如分配与利用) 相关的决策权,它反映各种决策实体在水 资源用益中相互的权利义务关系,其水权束主要可分为进入权和提取权 (access and withdraw) 、管理权 (manage) 、排他权 (exclude) 与转让权 (transfer) [ Table 3 The water utilization of the hotels in the studied villages ...
... Previous studies have revealed that stakeholders perceived environmental problems arose from tourism in an area [95][96][97]. In addition to the environmental problems, mass tourism also results in social problems over resource use [91,98]. As revealed by our study, the current tourism is adversely impacting the environment inside the KVO's KNP due to the pollution and degradation of the habitat. ...
Article
Simple Summary: Trophy hunting and mass tourism were introduced to Khunjerab National Park, northern Pakistan to generate income for the community and help conserve and sustain the ecosystem in the region. These initiatives have provided economic benefits, but only at the cost of other environmental problems, as both trophy hunting and mass tourism have resulted in various ecological issues. Trophy hunting has not been based on scientific population data and has thus not helped increase numbers of wild ungulates or wild carnivores. Although mass tourism has increased enormously in this region, it has damaged the ecosystem through pollution generation and negatively impacted wildlife. We suggest that trophy hunting should be stopped, and mass tourism should be shifted to ecotourism as a sustainable solution to help improve the ecosystem, while generating income for the local community. Further studies are required to investigate ecotourism as a potential mitigation measure for the conservation issues in this region. Abstract: Trophy hunting and mass tourism are the two major interventions designed to provide various socioeconomic and ecological benefits at the local and regional levels. However, these interventions have raised some serious concerns that need to be addressed. This study was conducted in Khunjerab National Park (KNP) with an aim to analyze comparatively the socioeconomic and ecological impacts of trophy hunting and mass tourism over the last three decades within the context of sustainability. Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with key stakeholders and household interviews were conducted to collect data on trophy hunting and mass tourism, and on local attitudes towards these two interventions in and around KNP. The results revealed that 170 Ibex (Capra sibirica) and 12 Blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur) were hunted in the study area over the past three decades, and trophy hunting was not based on a sustainable harvest level. Trophy hunting on average generated USD 16,272 annual revenue, which was invested in community development. However, trophy hunting has greatly changed the attitudes of local residents towards wildlife: a positive attitude towards the wild ungulates and strongly negative attitude towards wild carnivores. In addition, trophy hunting has reduced the availability of ungulate prey species for Snow leopards (Panthera uncia), and consequently, Snow leopards have increased their predation on domestic livestock. This has, in turn, increased human-snow leopard conflict, as negative attitudes towards carnivores result in retaliatory killing of Snow leopards. Furthermore, according to official record data, the number of tourists to KNP has increased tremendously by 10,437.8%, from 1382 in 1999 to 145,633 in 2018. Mass tourism on average generated USD 33,904 annually and provided opportunities for locals to earn high incomes, but it caused damages to the environment and ecosystem in KNP through pollution generation and negative impacts on wildlife. Considering the limited benefits and significant problems created by trophy hunting and mass tourism, we suggest trophy hunting should be stopped and mass tourism Animals 2020, 10, 597 2 of 20 should be shifted to ecotourism in and around KNP. Ecotourism could mitigate human-Snow leopard conflicts and help conserve the fragile ecosystem, while generating enough revenue incentives for the community to protect biodiversity and compensate for livestock depredation losses to Snow leopards. Our results may have implications for management of trophy hunting and mass tourism in other similar regions that deserve further investigation.
... Third, water bodies are often important landscapes, and waterfront areas can provide a variety of recreational activities, such as swimming, sailing, rowing, diving, and fishing (Hall & Härkönen, 2006). However, the prioritization of tourism development over the protection of water resources is likely to generate water crises, such as receding groundwater and depletion of water resources (LaVanchy, 2017). Furthermore, there tends to be a water competition between tourism and traditional industries in the emerging tourist destinations (Fulazzaky et al., 2017). ...
Article
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With the rapid development of the tourism industry, the water resource consumption in tourism has largely increased and gets more complicated, making water resource management in tourism more difficult. To achieve sustainable water utilization in tourism, water resource management has to take full account of the local natural, social, and industrial conditions, both satisfying the demands of water resource protection and tourism development. To analyze this coupling relationship, an integrated index system comprised of 15 indices is designed, and a coupling degree model between tourism-related water resource management and local conditions is introduced. The result revealed that tourism-related water resource management is generally congruent with the local conditions in China, and provinces at the very high/low coupling stage presented four clusters. A discussion combining the change of water policies and the water use efficiency of hotels in Beijing revealed that water-saving policies are proven to be necessary for the tourism development. Furthermore, a discussion of the four clusters revealed the advanced experience and deficiency of water policies in substantial tourism areas. The results could provide references for the improvement of water policies in the tourism industry in China. Highlights An index system and a coupling degree model are introduced to analyze tourism-related water management and local conditions in China.; Water management in tourism is generally congruent with the local conditions in China, and their coupling relationship presented a cluster pattern.; Water-saving priority is necessary for tourism in China.; The provinces on the east coast should take the strictest water management in tourism.;
... However, when uncontrolled, wildfires affect our cultural heritage substantially [52]. Recreation and massive tourism have a detrimental impact on the society, economy and environment, e.g., water and energy demand, urban sprawl, poverty, loss of culture and traditions and diseases spreading (e.g., [53,54,55]). Wildfires accentuate this problem and reduce the recreation and tourism potential and economic revenue (e.g., jobs, tourist visitors) of the affected area since it can change the landscape for decades. ...
Article
Fire is a natural element of the environment that can have pervasive and beneficial impacts on the ecosystems. Wildfires can induce dramatic socio-economic and environmental impacts, while prescribed fires can have several benefits. Therefore “fire is a good servant but a bad master”. Depending on the way it is used can be advantageous or detrimental. Here we study the short-term effect of wildfires and prescribed fires on regulating, provisioning and cultural ecosystem services. Wildfires occurrence have a detrimental effect on all ecosystem services, except Pest and Diseases Control and Knowledge Systems. On the other hand, prescribed fires use has a positive/neutral impact on most ecosystem services studied. The tradeoffs observed using this practice are related to negative impacts related to greenhouse gases and pollution emission (regulating) and decreasing biomass availability for energy and timber value (provisioning).
... Moreover, and reflecting global patterns, reasons for this mismatch often transcend physiological parameters. That is to say, situations of water "insecurity" are not always defined by the physical amount of water available via natural processes, but are more often the result of a convergence of issues that reflect power, race, gender, political, and economic systems (Cole & Ferguson 2015;Jepson 2012;LaVanchy 2017). ...
Chapter
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Sustainability politics, particularly with respect to water security, demand an understanding of the equity implications of changing social and physical landscapes during the Anthropocene. In this evolving paradigm, local and global drivers of environmental change interact to produce complex landscapes of environmental injustice. This chapter examines the intersection of climate change and a growing tourism industry along the “Emerald Coast” of Nicaragua. These processes, at once local and global, have put significant and compounding strain on local water availability. Not surprisingly, the most socially and politically marginalized residents in this region experience the most immediate and detrimental impacts associated with inequitable access to potable freshwater. Interviews with local residents, NGO staff, and tourism operators, coupled with groundwater and meteorological field measurements across five years, reveal not only worsening water scarcity, but also largely ad hoc, reactionary responses from local residents that have yielded non-uniform and uncertain outcomes. A key takeaway from this chapter is that responses to environmental injustice in Tola do not reflect the pursuit of environmental justice. We end the chapter with an exploration of how tourism research can play a role in achieving more just and sustainable expressions of tourism in the context of the climate crisis.
... Though access to drinking water in rural Latin America has improved substantially, reaching 84% of the rural population (Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP), 2017), many problems remain, including irregular supply, system breakdown and poor water quality (Lockwood & Smits, 2011). Climate change is likely to further exacerbate these problems, increasing the degree of scarcity and thus straining the functionality of existing systems (LaVanchy, 2017), a problem that is particularly acute in rural areas of Central and South America (Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 2012) Table 1. ...
Article
Ensuring adequate access to clean water remains a major challenge throughout the world, particularly in rural areas of the Global South. Community-based management (CBM) has been a common policy response to this challenge, whereby communities gain decision-making power over their own natural resources, and are also responsible for financial and technical issues. Household water metering is increasingly proposed as a complement to CBM because it facilitates transparency of use and provides the option of pay-per-use pricing, both of which are thought to help support the sustainable management of water supplies. However, metering and use-based fees are controversial and their implementation across various contexts has led to strong backlash that can undermine the management of community water systems. Drawing on ideas of procedural justice, we conducted a survey experiment with 689 residents across 12 communities in Honduras’ “dry corridor” to examine individual perceptions of the decision process for choosing to implement metering, or not, within the context of CBM. Our results show that more inclusive decision-making leads to higher perceived fairness of the process and appropriateness of the metering decision, irrespective of whether the individual personally agrees with the final decision. While inclusion matters in general, whether that takes the form of voting or deliberation did not make a large difference. The effect of inclusion was stronger among those who already agreed with the decision outcome. Finally, inclusion also had positive spillover effects on more technocratic outcomes, namely ratings of how effective and sustainable the resulting management of the water system was expected to be. This research suggests that the backlash observed against water metering projects around the world may have more to do with procedural injustice in decision-making than with resistance to metering itself.
... Furthermore, although domestic and tourism water demands are relatively low compared to agricultural activity, tourism is heavily water-dependent, and the quantity and quality of water affect multiple facets of tourism sustainability [16]. At first glance, tourism appears to have a negligible impact on water resources, because global figures suggest that international tourism accounts for less than 1% of national water use in most countries, although in some others, such as Spain, this percentage could exceed 10% [17]. Nevertheless, tourism tends to be concentrated in dry and warm places and seasons, coinciding with high water demand from urban and agriculture users [18]. ...
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Worldwide water consumption continues to grow, and it is estimated that in ten years, more than 160% of the total water volume worldwide will be needed to satisfy the global water requirements. In this context, non-conventional water resources are being considered to overcome water scarcity and reduce water conflicts between regions and sectors. A bibliometric analysis and literature review of 81 papers published between 2000 and 2020 focused on South-East Spain have been applied. The aim was to examine and re-think the benefits and concerns and the inter-connections of using reclaimed and desalinated water for agricultural and urban-tourist uses to address water scarcity and climate change impacts. Results highlight that (1) water use, cost, quality, management, and perception are the main topics debated by both reclaimed and desalinated users, (2) water governance schemes could be improved by including local stakeholders and water users in decision-making, and (3) rainwater is not recognized as a complementary option to increase water supply in semi-arid regions. Furthermore, the Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) analysis identifies complementary concerns such as acceptability and investment in reclaimed water, and regulation (cost recovery principle), and environmental impacts related to desalinated water.
... Such a phenomenon leads to severe challenges and potential conflicts in tourism development and environmental governance. In tourist destinations, tourist activities such as accommodation, transportation, catering, recreational activities, and facility construction and maintenance will exert heavy pressure on the local environment (De Vita, Katircioglu, Altinay, Fethi, & Mercan, 2015), and these negative impacts associated with tourism development are mainly reflected in the environmental elements such as air (Saenz-de-Miera & Rosselló, 2014), solid waste (Mateu-Sbert, Ricci-Cabello, Villalonga-Olives, & Cabeza-Irigoyen, 2013), and water (LaVanchy, 2017). To better reflect and reduce the environmental impacts of tourism, the evaluation framework of tourism efficiency should incorporate environmental pressure indicators (Gössling et al., 2005). ...
Article
This paper divides the entire operating process of a tourist attraction into the production subprocess and the environmental governance subprocess from a two-subprocess perspective, and evaluates the overall efficiency and the respective subprocess efficiency by establishing a range-adjusted measure (RAM) network data envel-opment analysis (DEA) model and further identifies the determinants of efficiency using a panel Tobit regression model. The applicability of the proposed model was examined using 25 tourist attractions in Chengdu during the period 2012-2016 as cases. The first-stage efficiency results show that only a few tourist attractions perform efficiently in two sub-processes and achieve overall efficiency during the observed period. In particular, most tourist attractions outperform environmental governance in the production subprocess. The overall efficiency is highly correlated with production efficiency and environmental governance efficiency. The second-stage regression analysis implies that the scale effect and technology effect have significant positive impacts on efficiency improvement, while the capital effect and resource endowment effect have significant negative impacts. The structure effect has no significant impacts, and environmental regulation has a significant positive impact on environmental governance efficiency and overall efficiency. Overall, the proposed model has better discriminatory power in distinguishing inefficient subprocesses than the traditional 'black box' models and provides process-specific guidance for efficiency improvement. This study broadens the perspective of efficiency bench-marking and improves the performance evaluation of tourist attractions, and the empirical results provide some valuable policy implications for destination management in tourist attractions.
... Furthermore, for countries where tourism is a major sector, the needs of tourists might be prioritized over the needs of the local population, generating potential for local conflicts, instability, and marginalization (LaVanchy, 2017). It is important to note that developing countries are not the only focus of the literature: in the context of the Mediterranean region, for instance, it addresses concerns about how decreasing rainfall impacts water supply availability (Philandras et al., 2011) andrelated costs (Martínez-Ibarra, 2015). ...
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Climate change impacts tourism, since both supply and demand of tourism services depend on the quality and the management of a set of environmental attributes. This paper critically reviews the empirical evidence in the literature of the last twenty years (2000–2019), by identifying the potential impacts of climate change in coastal and maritime destinations. The concept of Impact Chains is the methodological framework through which the literature is systematically selected, classified and assessed. A great heterogeneity of results is found, with estimates of physical and socio-economic impacts of climate change differing across destinations and methodologies. Moreover, the majority of recent studies mainly deals with only a few of the most important impacts, hence future research should be re-directed to overlooked indicators and relationships, which are key for designing effective climate policies at tourism destinations.
... It is well established that tourism development can affect water supply both quantitatively and qualitatively (Becken, Rajan, Moore, McLennan, & Garofano, 2014;Stonich, 1998). Water depletion, water pollution, and competition for water are some of the negative impacts that tourism brings (Becken, 2014;Benge & Neef, 2018;Cole, 2012;LaVanchy, 2017;LaVanchy & Taylor, 2015;Noble et al., 2012;Strauß, 2011). Studies have shown that the per capita use of water by tourists far exceeds that of locals (Becken, 2014;Crase et al., 2010;de Stefano, 2004). ...
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This international literature review of the tourism–water nexus identifies a gender gap. Tourism development can affect water supply both quantitatively and qualitatively. Many regions will face considerable problems of water availability and quality, affecting their tourism sector and increasing competition with local residents, and other industries especially agriculture. This international review of literature explores the tourism–water nexus, comparing and contrasting literature published in English, Chinese, and Spanish. Securing access to safe water for continued tourism development is a common theme and the vast majority of work has focused on hotels including water pricing, water‐saving practices and innovative management methods. In all continents, struggles are apparent, and the unsustainability of tourism is having impacts on water quantity and quality. This article identifies significant gaps in the literature including climate change, the energy‐water nexus, and the links with the Sustainable Development Goals. Furthermore, studies from a gendered perspective are minimal and the potential for areas of further gendered studies within the tourism–water nexus are highlighted including intersectionality, water insecurity and sanitation, tourism and gender based violence, and additional unpaid care work. This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Planning Water Human Water > Water Governance Human Water > Rights to Water Abstract André Bazán’s mural of the community/tourism water conflict in Playa Potrero, Guanacaste, Costa Rica.
... Previous studies have revealed that stakeholders perceived environmental problems arose from tourism in an area [95][96][97]. In addition to the environmental problems, mass tourism also results in social problems over resource use [91,98]. As revealed by our study, the current tourism is adversely impacting the environment inside the KVO's KNP due to the pollution and degradation of the habitat. ...
Article
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Trophy hunting and mass tourism are the two major interventions designed to provide various socioeconomic and ecological benefits at the local and regional levels. However, these interventions have raised some serious concerns that need to be addressed. This study was conducted in Khunjerab National Park (KNP) with an aim to analyze comparatively the socioeconomic and ecological impacts of trophy hunting and mass tourism over the last three decades within the context of sustainability. Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with key stakeholders and household interviews were conducted to collect data on trophy hunting and mass tourism, and on local attitudes towards these two interventions in and around KNP. The results revealed that 170 Ibex (Capra sibirica) and 12 Blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur) were hunted in the study area over the past three decades, and trophy hunting was not based on a sustainable harvest level. Trophy hunting on average generated USD 16,272 annual revenue, which was invested in community development. However, trophy hunting has greatly changed the attitudes of local residents towards wildlife: a positive attitude towards the wild ungulates and strongly negative attitude towards wild carnivores. In addition, trophy hunting has reduced the availability of ungulate prey species for Snow leopards (Panthera uncia), and consequently, Snow leopards have increased their predation on domestic livestock. This has, in turn, increased human–snow leopard conflict, as negative attitudes towards carnivores result in retaliatory killing of Snow leopards. Furthermore, according to official record data, the number of tourists to KNP has increased tremendously by 10,437.8%, from 1382 in 1999 to 145,633 in 2018. Mass tourism on average generated USD 33,904 annually and provided opportunities for locals to earn high incomes, but it caused damages to the environment and ecosystem in KNP through pollution generation and negative impacts on wildlife. Considering the limited benefits and significant problems created by trophy hunting and mass tourism, we suggest trophy hunting should be stopped and mass tourism should be shifted to ecotourism in and around KNP. Ecotourism could mitigate human–Snow leopard conflicts and help conserve the fragile ecosystem, while generating enough revenue incentives for the community to protect biodiversity and compensate for livestock depredation losses to Snow leopards. Our results may have implications for management of trophy hunting and mass tourism in other similar regions that deserve further investigation.
... From the results obtained by the TGH index, we understand that the scenario projected for Lenç� ois shows a trend already observed in other tourist destinations around the world, such as Bali (Cole, 2012), Benidorm ( Rico-Amoros, Sauri, Olcina-Cantos, & Vera-Rebollo, 2013) and Gigante (LaVanchy, 2017), which presented evidences of a direct relationship between tourism and groundwater environmental impacts. The identification of a sector in Lenç� ois, with influence of tourism on the hydrochemistry of groundwater, brings up a series of important questions to be considered by managers of other tourist destinations within the scope of urban management. ...
Article
Water resources and tourism need to be thought of in an integrated way, in order to provide urban planners and tourism managers with tools to promote water security and water equity. The objective of this paper was to apply an index capable of identify problems at the water-tourism interface, based on a spatial approach in GIS, meant to support the management of groundwater quality in tourist destinations. This index was applied to a tourist destination in northeastern Brazil, which uses groundwater to maintain its tourism infrastructure. The geographic phenomenon analyzed showed a spatial pattern between water use and tourism, with probable influences in hydrochemistry of groundwater. We suggest that the use of the propose index associated to GIS may be part of strategic planning efforts contemplating the interaction between tourism, urban management and water security, thus guaranteeing the infrastructure essential to strengthening the economy of a tourist destination.
... However, tourist activities such as transportation, accommodation, water supply, and facility construction and maintenance pose heavy pressure on the environment (De Vita, Katircioglu, Altinay, Fethi, & Mercan, 2015;Duffy, 2006). Negative impacts are concentrated on environmental elements such as water (Gabarda-Mallorquí, Garcia, & Ribas, 2017;Lavanchy, 2017), soil (Shi, 2006), atmosphere (Saenz-de-Miera & Rosselló, 2014), land cover (Vijay et al., 2016), and flora and fauna (Wolf, Hagenloh, & Croft, 2013). Furthermore, the discharged greenhouse gases are affecting global climate (Scott et al., 2008). ...
Article
This study aims to evaluate the environmental performance status of tourist areas and explore the influencing factors using text mining of web news. As the leading tourist attractions in China, the National 5A Tourist Areas face severe environmental challenges, and were hence chosen to exemplify the rapid assessment approach in the big data era. This study used over 1,300,000 words from online news sources and assessed the environmental performance of 120 National 5A Tourist Areas to conclude that (1) water is the most impacted environmental resource; (2) tourist area environmental performance can be classified into (a) environmental pollution, (b) ecological and resource pressure, (c) landscape character issues and (d) others; and (3) the primary factors influencing the environment are tourism and business operating activities, with the tourist areas’ environmental performance types being strongly related to their spatial locations and weakly related to their resource types. By comparing the environmental performance types in this paper with related research the effectiveness of this study’s approach is validated. These conclusions and this approach can provide guidelines and tools for environmental assessment and promote tourist area management.
... Tourism is heavily water-dependent, and the quantity and quality of water affect multiple facets of tourism sustainability (Sun and Hsu 2019). At first glance, tourism appears to have a negligible impact on water resources (Gabarda, Ribas, and Daunis-i-Estadella 2015), as global figures suggest that international tourism accounts for less than 1% of national water use in the majority of countries (Lavanchy 2017). However, in some contexts, this percentage could be higher: in Spain, tourism's estimated share in domestic water consumption exceeds 10% (Gössling et al. 2012). ...
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Water-related hazards such as water scarcity may be mitigated by considering interbasin and intersectoral transfers of freshwater, and by promoting the use of non-conventional water resources. This paper deepens on key driving factors able to define the benefits and barriers of a water exchange among agricultural and urban-tourism activities as a mechanism to reduce water scarcity risk in the Marina Baja county, in Alicante (Spain). Thematic analysis through semi-structured interviews with the Marina Baja Water Consortium and the Canal Bajo del Algar irrigators’ community has been conducted based on their role in promoting integrated management of water resources. Results highlighted how water management, water quality, and water charging are the three main issues to be considered when promoting water exchange between agricultural and urban-tourist activities. Learnings could be used to customize interventions at a regional scale when promoting water exchange between confronted water uses in water scarcity regions.
... In this context, Central America continues to grow in popularity as a tourism destination because of cultural and natural attractions, biodiversity and affordability (Hunt et al., 2015). Nicaragua is becoming an attractive option in the region, with 1.8 million visitors and 18 per cent of growth rate in international arrivals in 2017 (LaVanchy, 2017;Usher and Kerstetter, 2014). Rural community tourism (RCT) is an experience of community-based tourism present in Nicaragua since more than two decades ago (L opez-Guzmán and Sánchez-Cañizares, 2009). ...
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Purpose Rural community tourism (RCT) represents an experience of community-based tourism where local population retains control over the process and the bulk of benefits. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the study of successful RCT experiences in Nicaragua to enlarge the literature of tourism sustainability. Design/methodology/approach Applying the resource-based theory of the firm to tourism, the paper defines a theoretical framework where local resources and capabilities combined through organization and strategic actions result in competitive advantages at the community level reinforcing its sustainable dimension. The model is tested empirically through Structural Equation Modelling-Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) modelling for Nicaraguan RCT experiences. Findings Main findings show a good performance of empirical results, with the community dimension representing the cornerstone of the RCT project. Results remark how the presence of community tangible and intangible resources and capabilities are combined and exploited in tourism initiatives through strategies that put the preservation of the community as the central objective. This process leads to the emergence of competitive advantages that promote the sustainability of the community lifestyle, ensuring a durable approach of the rural tourism initiatives. Other interesting findings show how this type of RCT projects also promote the integration of weak rural collectives, like women and young people, or the pivotal cooperation emerging between public and private actors. Originality/value The paper provides a novel framework to better understand some of the key pieces ensuring the sustainability of tourism initiatives. This theoretical setting has been applied to the case of rural areas at developing countries but could be enlarged to other contexts at developed countries having to deal with mass tourism and important related negative impacts of these activities. In sum, the main value of the paper is to provide a framework helping to identify the context that is needed to implement successful sustainable tourism experiences.
... Considering water to be a valuable, scarce resource, researchers have conducted studies focused on identifying practical and business initiatives through which water-based tourism can be developed without jeopardizing the quality and availability of water resources. In this sense, the relationship between water and tourism is focused on sustainability [2,8,9]. ...
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Water is an important element for the conservation of ecosystems and for human wellbeing. Recently, there has been a loss of awareness about the value of this resource, which requires scientific and practical action to encourage the rise of a new cultural attitude regarding water. Tourism gives water resources great potential, because it facilitates the development of such attractive resources, combining their protection with respectful use. However, studies that have explored the water tourism–territory relationship are still scarce. The objective of this work is to explore the current, touristic use of the aquifer sites in the Spanish region of Extremadura in order to determine whether these practices have the potential to generate new sensitivity about the value of water and its importance in socioeconomic development and environmental conservation. This research uses qualitative and quantitative methodologies, obtaining results that confirm the strategic role of water in the proper management of ecosystems and for the enhancement of human wellbeing. The empirical results show the beginning of a change in water-based tourism from both a supply- and demand-side perspectives. The conclusions suggest potential new measures that will facilitate a better understanding of the value of water, enhance the quality of life for everyone, and safeguard ecosystems.
... Tourism growth-water security nexus 138 Food-biodiversity nexus 139 Mining-water nexus 140 Nexus between financial autonomy, service provision, stakeholder participation and the resultant allocation of water 141 Nexus of climate change, water and food security, energy and social justice 142 Nexus between water service provision and property development 143 Renewable energy consumptioneconomic growth 144 Urban-water-energy-climate nexus 145 Each example has indirect linkages with many other SDGs as illustrated by food-energy-water nexus' linkages with all SDGs in Fig. 1. Credit (symbols): United Nations. ...
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Many global challenges, though interconnected, have been addressed singly, at times reducing one problem while exacerbating others. Nexus approaches simultaneously examine interactions among multiple sectors. Recent quantitative studies have revealed that nexus approaches can uncover synergies and detect trade-offs among sectors. If well implemented, nexus approaches have the potential to reduce negative surprises and promote integrated planning, management and governance. However, application and implementation of nexus approaches are in their infancy. No studies have explicitly quantified the contributions of nexus approaches to progress toward meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. To further implement nexus approaches and realize their potential, we propose a systematic procedure and provide perspectives on future directions. These include expanding nexus frameworks that consider interactions among more sectors, across scales, between adjacent and distant places, and linkages with Sustainable Development Goals; incorporating overlooked drivers and regions; diversifying nexus toolboxes; and making these strategies central in policy-making and governance for integrated Sustainable Development Goal implementation.
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The tourism sector significantly impacts global environmental change and resource management. The social and economic aspects of tourism are also worthy of examination from the political ecology perspective. In this context, there is a growing need for academic studies examining tourism's environmental, social, and economic components. This study is conducted to meet this need and provide an in-depth analysis of the works on political ecology in tourism. This research aims to assess scholarly investigations within the tourism domain employing a political ecology framework, utilizing bibliometric analysis as the methodological approach. Within this scope, publications in the literature have been quantitatively examined, and the studies' prevalence, interactions, and developmental trends have been revealed. The WoS database identified 192 studies published between 1998 and 2023 on the subject. The analysis of leading journals, authors, countries, and keywords related to the topic indicates the following: There has been a noteworthy surge in the number of scholarly inquiries about political ecology within the scientific realm associated with tourism. In addition, the leading country on the subject is the United States. Finally, conservation and ecotourism become the main focal points of studies on political ecology. In summary, it is anticipated that this study will provide a substantial contribution to the existing literature in the domain of political ecology within the context of tourism, offering guidance for researchers in the design and execution of subsequent studies. KEYWORDS Political ecology, Tourism, Bibliometric analysis
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Water conservation is a global concern, particularly in regions like Zimbabwe grappling with water scarcity. The hospitality industry is pivotal in sustainable water management with its diverse lodging establishments. This research examines the effect of lodging establishment features on water conservation efforts in Zimbabwe. Based on survey responses from 203 lodging facilities, the empirical investigation reveals significant associations between various lodging facility attributes and water conservation practices. Established lodging businesses demonstrate a propensity for standardised water sustainability initiatives, while higher-graded establishments focus on more advanced practices. The study also reveals that newer lodging facilities are more likely to embrace advanced water conservation methods due to accessibility to technological advancements. The findings contribute valuable insights into the dynamics influencing water conservation practices within the lodging sector seeking to address sustainability challenges.
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Recent years have seen an increase in the popularity of exploring the correlation between groundwater and tourism as a research topic. Although previous studies have touched on certain aspects of this relationship, none has yet plunged to the heart of the matter. This Bibliometric study examines the literature on the relationship between tourism and groundwater in the overall context of economic development. The bibliometric tools VOS Viewer version 1.6.19 and R Bibliometrix were employed to analyze 104 publications selected via the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses diagram. The results suggest a growing interest in the subject and the need for broader and collaborative research, to fully understand these dynamics. Major contributions come from Spanish, American, Chinese, and Mexican authors, focusing on sustainability, anthropogenic impact, physical characteristics, and groundwater quality. In conclusion, this study provides an overview of the current research landscape, identifies trends and gaps, and encourages international collaboration for a better understanding of groundwater issues in the tourism context. Although our work provides very important knowledge, it should be recognized that the analysis is made only based on the Scopus-indexed literature. This restriction highlights the necessity for future research to do a more comprehensive and integrated bibliometric analysis. The array of research sources will thus definitely enhance the joint academic knowledge on that subject and lead to more inclusive and, therefore, higher-quality academic discourse.
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Water scarcity has been escalating both in terms of frequency and severity, owing to climate change and global warming. Furthermore, water is a vital source that is at the core of crucial sectors like agriculture. Yet, this source is labeled scarce, and its distribution is uneven globally. For the aforementioned reasons, achieving a rational use of water is of utmost importance. In this framework, computational intelligence like artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and machine-learning, has been gaining momentum for implementing smart irrigation and precision agriculture. Thus, the chapter surveys a selection of recent studies, corroborating AI, IoT, and machine-learning as promising approaches to advance agriculture. The chapter also sheds light on the notion of virtual water, proposes strategies to deal with water scarcity, and highlights the essential components to achieve effective smart irrigation, thereby switching toward an innovative model of sustainable digital agriculture.
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During the 1970s and 1980s, as surfers were carving out new international surf spaces around the globe, Nicaragua was on a much different trajectory—one that engendered the Sandinista guerrilla insurgency that deposed a four-decade-long, US-backed dictatorship in 1979. In response, the United States waged a decade-long, low-intensity counterinsurgency against the Sandinista government. While other surfing destinations were growing in popularity, notably neighboring Costa Rica, Nicaragua was, by most accounts, considered off-limits due to the conflict. In 1990, a watershed moment fostered an environment conducive to international tourism and foreign investment. The election of Violeta Barrios Torres de Chamorro ushered in a time of peace unseen for decades. Chamorro’s embrace of market-driven economics created a scenario welcoming for international visitors and their foreign capital. A perhaps unforeseen beneficiary of these policies were surfers, who started gravitating to the once rural peripheries of southwestern Nicaragua. This radically changed the economic and cultural character of these historically indigenous communities. Over the course of three decades, surfing and its subculture permeated virtually all parts of these coastal pueblos, resulting in a profound and largely irreversible sociocultural and economic transformation. This dissertation places surfers and surfing at the center of this phenomenon, tracing the evolution of the Popoyo area, and the Tola Municipality more broadly, from an undeveloped stretch of Pacific coastline to an international epicenter for surf tourism and expatriate communities.
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Tourism in ecological functional zones (EFZs) is rapidly becoming an increasing trend; however, its impact on ecosystem services remains poorly understood owing to the absence of a consistent quantification framework. This study uses the Taihang Mountains (THM), an EFZ in China, as an example to develop a framework for evaluating the direct and indirect impact pathways of scenic spots on the trade-offs between multiple ecosystem services by identifying the linkages between scenic spot development, socioeconomic change, land use transitions, and ecosystem services. The results show that the continued conversion of agricultural land, grassland, and forest to constructed land around scenic spots in 2000-2020 was accompanied by a decline in water yield (WY) and habitat quality (HQ); while food production (FP), carbon storage (CS), and soil retention (SR) increased. Land use and ecosystem service changes around scenic spots in the THM also exhibited significant spatial gradient effects. In particular, a 10-km buffer area was identified as a distinct "influence zone" where the ecosystem services trade-offs and land use changes were the most pronounced. In 2010, scenic spot revenue was the dominant factor that increased the trade-offs between SR with FP and CS via direct pathways. However, in 2020, the dominant factor was scenic spot level, which shifted the impact toward the relationship between CS and WY and HQ by intensifying the trade-offs to facilitating synergies. This was accomplished in an indirect manner, such as the facilitation of local population growth, industrial restructuring, and infrastructure development. This study reveals the varying effects of scenic spot development via different pathways, thereby providing useful insights for global EFZs to more precisely design policies that can adequately balance human activities with ecosystem services.
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This article mobilizes insights from political ecology analysis. Specifically, it focuses on how power asymmetries between stakeholder groups may or may not produce uneven socio-environmental outcomes in the tourism-water nexus in Barbados. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) like Barbados, which obtains an estimated 90% of its water from groundwater aquifers, are particularly vulnerable to changing patterns of precipitation. While the data collected are preliminary, they point towards the production of uneven socio-environmental outcomes based on very prevalent power asymmetries.
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It is anticipated and analysed in various studies that tourists’ behaviour is likely to witness a transition in the post-COVID 19 period which would majorly include the significance of hygiene, sanitised services, and physical distancing in travel-related decisions. This demands for better visitor management to enhance visitors’ experience at a destination. This perspective study aims to highlight the application of various visitor management techniques at various destinations in the post-COVID 19 phase. After a review of available literature, the effectiveness and drawbacks of different techniques would be discussed from a theoretical context. The current study would help destinations transform in the recovery phase and embrace sustainable development of tourism at destinations. A strategic application of the various visitor management techniques namely, LAC, VERP, VIM, VAMP etc. would assist the destination managers in monitoring the tourists flow, in balancing tourism development, conservation and resolution of the existing conflicts (largely between the local population and tourism stakeholders), and implement policies to minimise the ill effects at different destinations.
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Gateway communities that neighbour parks and protected areas are impacted by tourism, while facing unique circumstances related to protected area management. Economic dependency remains a serious challenge for these communities, especially in a climate of neoliberalism, top-down policy environments, and park closures related to environmental degradation or government budgets. The collection of works in this edited book provide bottom-up, informed, and nuanced approaches to tourism management using local experiences from gateway communities and protected areas management emerging from a decade of guidelines, rulemaking, and exclusive decision-making. Global perspectives are presented and contextualized at the local level of gateway communities in an attempt to balance nature, community, and commerce, while supporting the triple bottom line of sustainable tourism. The book has 11 chapters and a subject index.
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The Chinese government has issued multiple policies to improve hotel sustainability, including the Green Hotel Programme launched in 2002. Many studies separately examine technical innovations or individual environmental awareness and behaviours in hotels. The literature pays little attention to the interconnection between material arrangements and consumption activities across this sector. This paper aims to explore resource consumption and environmental sustainability in tourist accommodations through a socio-material approach that underscores the importance of infrastructure-practice dynamics. Grounded in a qualitative study on resort hotels and guesthouses in a Chinese hot spring town, this research analyses how buildings, infrastructures, and facilities of tourist accommodations have been designed, innovated, managed, and used with implications for resource consumption and environmental sustainability. This paper finds that to what extent these material settings contribute to the sustainable production and consumption of the lodging industry depends on (1) professionals’ imaginations of what and how services should be delivered (at the design stage), and (2) the interdependence, interaction, and co-evolution between infrastructures and the tourist practices they enable and sustain (at the stages of innovation and management). Moving beyond isolated hotel cases, this paper also finds that broader tourism sustainability issues such as the uneven distribution of natural resources, social exclusion, and environmental pollution relate to hotel managers and government officials’ economics-oriented perspective that disregards the infrastructure-practice dynamics embedded in the planning, operation and management of tourism infrastructures in Wentang. This paper argues that, by upholding the notions of infrastructure-in-use and infrastructure-practice dynamics, researchers are able to identify challenges of, and opportunities for, the transition to green, low-carbon, and sustainable hotel and tourism industries. This paper concludes by offering fresh insights for hotel designers, managers, and policy-makers and outlining future research agendas.
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In the Northeast of Brazil, seaside tourism is developing, particularly near metropolitan areas. This tourism was initiated by public policies and involves private actors for the creation of strongly capitalized hotel resorts. This article explores the arguments on which policies are justified in the stakeholders’ narrative, it analyzes the types of conflicts generated by the control of space, particularly concerning the sharing of water resources between hotel resorts and local populations. The study concerns two territories previously occupied by the working class, on the outskirts of large metropolises. The narratives of tourism stakeholders promote modernization and economic development, supposed to accompany tourist resorts, when in reality, it generates exclusion of local populations from the coastal area. The inhabitants of the coast, poorly served by the drinking water supply networks, see their individual well threatened by the aquifer exploitation of hotel resorts, without the public authorities actually regulating the use of water.
Article
Purpose The contradiction between the purpose of the water-splashing tradition, the use of water in a water-stressed destination and overconsumption during a time of water shortage led the researchers to question the spirit of the Songkran Festival. It is important to keep the spirit of the festival alive without interrupting the livelihoods of the community and to critically engage with opportunities and challenges related to water-saving practices during the festival. Thus, this study aims to investigate the opportunities and challenges to responsible practices of water-saving at a cultural festival, using a case study of the water-splashing practice at the Songkran Festival in Thailand. Design/methodology/approach This study used the cultural practice, namely, the water-splashing tradition at the Songkran Festival in Thailand, as a case study. The researchers conducted document analysis on local newspapers, the Bangkok Post specifically and participant observation at the Songkran Festival in the Khao San Road area in Bangkok, to gain first-hand insights to develop comprehensive results which answers the study’s objectives. Findings The key findings show three significant themes representing the opportunities for implementing sustainable water-saving practices; a call for a water-saving campaign, education on water saving and water-splashing restrictions. In terms of challenges to implementing water-saving practices, two key themes emerged; a lack of water stress and drought awareness and the hedonistic characteristic of water splashing. The study findings provide important implications to theory and practice for sustainable event management and provide considerations for event stakeholders to minimise water overuse in festivals. Originality/value Environmental degradation is a key global issue that the United Nations addresses in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) scheme (United Nations Development Program, 2016). According to Pereira et al. (2009), water scarcity can be caused by both human activities and natural causes. Factors such as unlimited water consumption, population growth and climate change are some of the contributing factors that not only affects resident's access to water but also on events hosted within communities. It is crucial that event managers critically re-think the way festivals are designed in water-stressed destinations.
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Across Latin America, improved water access in rural areas has primarily been secured by residents themselves, bolstered by myriad state and nonstate, domestic and international, entities. In recent decades, the state has lent increasing attention to the rural sector. This article examines recent state interventions towards understanding the evolution of the state’s role in rural water provision vis-à-vis community-based water service providers in Costa Rica, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Recognizing the tensions inherent in a call for state engagement in rural water provision, we propose roles that directly engage the challenges facing CBWM organizations, emphasizing state engagement with national and transnational water committee governance networks and state-society accountability mechanisms.
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Rural areas and in particular mountain territories have been experiencing an increasing appreciation of natural and heritage resources and their use for recreational and leisure activities, boosting tourism development and generating renewed functions with economic and social impact. Inland waters are becoming increasingly important for leisure and tourism, with many activities associated and many users seeking for them. Fluvial beaches represent leisure facilities for rural communities, allowing people and visitors access to aquatic spaces for leisure, sport and entertainment, creating conditions for enjoying nature and water resources, particularly during the summer period. The supply of surface water resources – rivers, lakes and canals – in the territory of the Estrela Geopark in Portugal, represent a tourist potential for this mountain region. They qualify the offer and constitute recreational attractions appreciated by the community and tourists, generating social well-being and fostering new services. There is a growing demand for these spaces, allowing the upgrading of fluvial areas, generating new features and enhancing the image of the destination Serra da estrela. The greater part of this equipment is operated by public entities linked to local administration, thus benefiting from public investment and support. There is a strong perception of its importance in attracting tourists, in improving the quality of life of the local population and in the opportunity to expand trade and service activities. Also in the image of the community, and their self-esteem is perceived, the importance of river beaches and consequently the disclosure that they associate, in terms of environmental quality, heritage value, and space of tranquillity.
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The purpose of this study is to address the importance of water resources in tourism and leisure activities, to establish a framework of activities in inland waters and their meaning in the territory of the Serra da Estrela, namely within the scope of Estrela Geopark. Recognizing tourism as one of the pillars of a UNESCO world geopark, the image and brand of this destination is enhanced by the classification obtained, which drives the strengthening of partnerships; collaboration and cooperation between stackholders; the appreciation and diffusion of its heritage and culture; encouraging increased visitor numbers, consumption of goods and services, and decreasing seasonality of tourism. The attraction of its waters for tourism and leisure activities represents a resource for the strengthening of the economic activities within the region with concrete effects on trade, hotels, and local restaurants, in view of the practices involved, the natural and cultural contexts that the territory offers, and the opportunities for new activities.
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Due to its potential to deliver economic benefits without major extractive activities, tourism is often considered as a means to sustainable development. However, there is inadequate problematization of the environmental impact of tourism in existing tourism research. A major weakness of the sustainable tourism discourse is the negligence of relatively well-known ecological principles of limits, entropy, and Jevons paradox. This selective review puts forth the argument of ecological limits to inform tourism sustainability research and advances two hypotheses for further problematization of the concept and future research. Consequently, it is argued that with the accelerating impoverishment of the biosphere, tourism could only meaningfully contribute to environmentally sustainable development by pivoting away from incremental solutions and by embracing the idea of transformative change through concepts such as degrowth and planetary limits.
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This chapter examines the increased demand placed on limited water resources by a rapidly growing tourism sector in Playa Gigante, Nicaragua. Results from field campaigns suggest that recharge of the local aquifer may not meet burgeoning tourism demands for water. This chapter also points to initial conflicts over water between locals and tourism operations, which are further complicated by ineffective implementation of national water policies and the common pool nature of groundwater. The conclusion discusses the need for more extensive research and better implementation of water policy through community governance and collaboration.
Article
ABSTRACT Though tourist destinations in Ingiria are popular among domestic tourists, lack of well-managed tourism strategy has exploited the landscape. Water and landscape are as precious resources have the potentiality to implement an integrated regional alternative tourism development plan for Ingiriya. Identifying water tourism as a strategy to manage water-based ecosystems sustainably,this study assesses the physical-chemical quality of water and landscape quality and their suitability in selected destinations for water tourism. The study mainly depends on the primary data. Using various data collection methods primary data were obtained while Leopold method, Environment Area Analysis used to analyze primary data. Water samples were collected randomly in order to assess the water quality for tourism activities. Among six destinations four were selected while Nachchimale selected as a suitable destination for water tourism. Using Nachchimale as the core destination of the water tourism a regional water tourism zone can be implemented in Ingiriya. The study has identified a few constraints where government intervention is highly required to implement water tourism.
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This article argues for positioning biophysical nature as the central focus of the contemporary ecotourism narrative. Biophysical environment remains the most important attraction as well as the principal limiting factor of ecotourism due to its relative inelasticity to demand; and against the backdrops of increasing tourist numbers and a shrinking resource base, its condition should become the central concern for assessing ecotourism sustainability. Despite a modest increase of some species numbers, species habitats today are increasingly fragmented, and most ecotourism destinations harbor a long history of resource depletion. The article refers to key concepts and findings regarding the great acceleration of anthropogenic alteration of nature, and by connecting those insights with the central problems of ecotourism, it argues that in the Anthropocene – an era of sweeping changes to the geo-biosphere – a romanticized view of the ecotourism locale as pristine or grand is outdated, and a (re)evaluation of non-human nature, based on its rarity and fragility, as well as dynamism and complexity, is required. Relevant frameworks from Long-Term Ecological Research and landscape ecology are introduced and a checklist for praxis is proposed. It is posited that this conceptual reordering is necessary for developing ecotourism a viable tool for nature conservation.
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There are sparse hydrogeological data and knowledge in many areas of the world reliant on groundwater. Nicaragua’s Pacific coast is one such region that is also experiencing water scarcity resulting from its hydrogeology, climate change, and increasing groundwater demands. The primary source of water in the region is the aquifer system associated with the Brito Formation, marine sedimentary strata of mostly sandstone that blanket 75-km of coastline in southwest Nicaragua. This study focused on the Tola municipality with the objective to advance a conceptual understanding of the hydrogeology and support sustainable water development. Results demonstrate a heterogeneous aquifer system with regional flow characteristics and other factors that influence groundwater availability and water quality. Primary porosity is low, and secondary porosity is the primary mechanism of aquifer storage and is influenced by geological structure and diagenesis processes. Groundwater recharge is spatially and temporally heterogeneous and direct recharge is low. Infiltration of streamflow and runoff, especially early in the rainy season is thought to be a large component of groundwater recharge. Climate, flow and recharge dynamics, and low storage capacity make the Brito Formation a sensitive resource and vulnerable to drought, increased abstraction, and climate change. This assessment provides data and insights useful for informing future studies and investments within the region and may be applicable in other Central American and Caribbean nations with coastal sandstone aquifers.
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Attractive coastal regions of Central and South America have recently experienced a rapid growth of second home developments. Informed by the experiences of Europe and the Americas, this paper examines the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of second homes on the South Pacific Coast of Nicaragua. The main impacts include conflicts with local and indigenous communities over land use and ownership, seasonal and low-income employment generation, an increased burden of municipal budget to provide public infrastructure, and environmental degradation. It is argued that the second home tourism sector, strongly driven by private real estate investors, fails to generate tourism activities which are expected to sustain community development. Furthermore, this study indicates that municipalities concentrating on the second home tourism segment may deprive access to resources to other forms of tourism activities.
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Doubt persists about ecotourism's ability to make tangible contributions to conservation and deliver benefits for host communities. This work in Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula tests the hypothesis that ecotourism in this region is more effective at improving well-being for local residents, at enhancing their access to key resources and information, and at supporting biodiversity conservation than other locally available economic sectors. Data from 128 semi-structured interviews with local workers, both in ecotourism and in other occupations, together with associated research, indicate that ecotourism offers the best currently available employment opportunities, double the earnings of other livelihoods, and other linked benefits. Locally, ecotourism is viewed as the activity contributing most to improvements in residents’ quality of life in the Osa Peninsula and to increased levels of financial and attitudinal support for parks and environmental conservation. Ecolodge ownership by local people is substantial, and many local ecotourism workers plan to launch their own businesses. The data offer a convincing rebuttal to arguments that ecotourism does little to address poverty or disparities in access to resources and equally rebuts claims that ecotourism is simply a part of the “neoliberal conservation toolkit” that cannot help but exacerbate the very inequalities it purports to address.
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This chapter focuses on tourists’ ethical behaviour, offering an alternative view to the purely rational perspective of ethical choice by taking into account the role emotions play in the decision-making process. Many acknowledge the potential negative impacts of a growing tourism industry and, despite concerted efforts, a gap still exists with regard to our understanding of consumers’ ethical choice processes, as they often act in contradiction to their expressed ethical concerns. This chapter demonstrates the importance of emotional experiences, not only in motivating and reinforcing tourists’ ethical choices, but also as an integral part of the core consumption experience.
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Many island destinations are struggling with tourism’s water demands. A political ecology approach is used to understand how social power and ecology come together and result in inequitable and unsustainable water distribution on the island of Bali. Bali is an important case study because 80% of the economy depends on tourism and tourism depends on a healthy water supply. Following a month of interviews and a survey, a stakeholder map has been developed. The causes and consequences of Bali’s mismanagement of water are discussed. The environmental and political factors that intersect and result in water inequity are already causing social conflict and environmental problems. In the near future they will begin to impacts on Bali’s tourism and economy.
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Recent large-scale land acquisitions for agricultural production (including biofuels), popularly known as 'land grabbing', have attracted headline attention. Water as both a target and driver of this phenomenon has been largely ignored despite the interconnectedness of water and land. This special issue aims to fill this gap and to widen and deepen the lens beyond the confines of the literature’s still limited focus on agriculture-driven resource grabbing. The articles in this collection demonstrate that the fluid nature of water and its hydrologic complexity often obscure how water grabbing takes place and what the associated impacts on the environment and diverse social groups are. The fluid properties of water interact with the 'slippery' nature of the grabbing processes: unequal power relations; fuzziness between legality and illegality and formal and informal rights; unclear administrative boundaries and jurisdictions, and fragmented negotiation processes. All these factors combined with the powerful material, discursive and symbolic characteristics of water make 'water grabbing' a site for conflict with potential drastic impacts on the current and future uses and benefits of water, rights as well as changes in tenure relations
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In the 1960s the isolated tropical forest enclave of Quintana Roo was targeted by the Mexican Government to serve as the cornerstone for launching what is now considered to be one of Mexico’s most successful economic development strategies – Planned Tourism Development (PTD). This paper commences with a brief review of the role of state-driven PTD in Mexico’s national economic development agenda. Government discourse surrounding the Cancun project emphasised tourism as a mechanism for promoting ‘regional development’through creation of backward linkages to other economic sectors – notably agriculture and small industry – to benefit the region’s marginalised Mayan peasant population. Based on research in Quintana Roo, this paper contends that while PTD has generated profit for the Government, transnational corporations and entrepreneurial elites, it has failed to achieve backward linkages that may have improved conditions for the region’s impoverished rural population. Employing a case study approach, the paper illustrates the failure of PTD to stimulate balanced regional development, while analysing PTD’s role in reinforcing existing relations of domination and subordination to produce new patterns of uneven development and inequity within Quintana Roo.
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This article reviews direct freshwater consumption in tourism from both quantitative and qualitative viewpoints to assess the current water demand of the tourism sector and to identify current and future management challenges. The article concludes that even though tourism increases global water consumption, direct tourism-related water use is considerably less than 1% of global consumption, and will not become significant even if the sector continues to grow at anticipated rates of around 4% per year (international tourist arrivals). The situation differs at the regional level because tourism concentrates traveller flows in time and space, and often-in dry destinations where water resources are limited. Furthermore, the understanding of tourism’s indirect water requirements, including the production of food, building materials and energy, remains inadequately understood, but is likely to be more substantial than direct water use. The article concludes that with expected changes in global precipitation patterns due to climate change, it is advisable in particular for already water scarce destinations to engage in proactive water management. Recommendations for managing tourism’s water footprint are made.
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Since the development of community-based tourism (CBT) governments, development agencies and NGOs have placed considerable emphasis on this development model. However, CBT has been strongly criticized with respect to low economic impact in terms of jobs and income, the result of small-scale interventions, its low life expectancy after external funding ends, the monopolisation of benefits by local elites, or the lack of business skills to make it operational.This article explores the viability of the CBT model to support socio-economic development and poverty alleviation via a Nicaraguan case study. The characteristics and effects of different modes of organising community tourism were examined, based on an impact assessment and lifecycle analysis of the CBT Nicaraguan Network. The results showed how traditional top-down CBT, created and fully funded by external organisations, reflected the general criticisms of the approach, while bottom-up CBT, borne as a result of a local initiative, demonstrated longer life expectancy, faster growth, and more positive impacts on the local economy. The findings suggest a shift is required in the attention of donors and policy-makers towards redistribution policies that strengthen the skills, resources, and conditions of micro, community-based and family entrepreneurship, together with a stronger orientation towards the domestic markets.
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Faced with intensifying demand for and diminishing supplies of water, the sustainability of many tourism destinations is dependent on using innovative eco‐efficient strategies to manage water resources. However, the task of assessing the relative merits of various management strategies is challenging due to a complex array of water consumption and wastewater issues in tourism destinations. This research describes a systematic framework for identifying the key components of water management in tourism destinations and describes a “bottom‐up” modelling procedure for assessing the relative eco‐efficiency of various strategies for conserving this essential resource. It then applies the model to strategies being considered for implementation in Whistler, British Columbia—one of North America's leading mountain resort destinations. The research contributes to sustainable planning theory and practice by describing a forecasting model for assessing the eco‐efficiency of water management strategies in tourism destinations, and then illustrating its practical application in the context of emerging water management practices.
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While it is true that tourism is one of the main driving forces behind economic growth in several world regions, it is also true that tourism can have serious negative environmental impacts, especially with regard to water resources. The tourist water demand can generate big problems of sustainability, mainly in those regions where water is scarce, as occurs in most coastal and small island destinations where a large part of world tourism is concentrated. Given the shortage of literature on the subject, further research into the tourist water demand is required, with particular attention to the hotel sector, since hotels are the most popular option for tourists, displaying higher levels of water consumption. The main purpose of this study is to develop a model to analyse hotel water consumption at a mature sun and sand destination with a strong seasonal pattern and scarcity of water; characteristics shared by some of the world's main tourist destinations. Our model includes a set of different hotel variables associated with physical, seasonal and management-related factors and it improves on the capacity to explain water consumption at such destinations. Following a hierarchical regression methodology, the model is empirically tested through a survey distributed to managers of a representative sample of hotels on the island of Mallorca. From the obtained results, interesting recommendations can be made for both hotel managers and policy makers. Among these, it should be highlighted that the strategic move contemplated by many mature destinations towards a higher quality, low-season model could have significant negative effects in terms of the sustainability of water resources. Our results also conclude that managerial decisions, like the system of accommodation that is offered (i.e. the proliferation of the "all-inclusive" formula, both at mature and new destinations), could give rise to the same negative effect. Development of water saving initiatives (usually introduced in response to demand-based factors), also reveals significant effects over water consumption. Finally, other key factor in explaining hotel water consumption is the management system under which the hotel is run.
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The Nicaraguan Water Law, enacted in September 2007, is the first attempt to implement a new water law in the country. This is not an isolated legislative process in Central America, as other countries initiated similar reforms based on the Dublin principles. Although all new water laws need time to be implemented, the progress in Nicaragua has so far been meager. This paper provides a diagnosis about the Nicaraguan Water Law by identifying the major factors that may impede or delay its future implementation and enforcement. Its empirical underpinning is provided by 41 in-depth interviews among a sample of representative policy actors and stakeholders. The results show that the law’s potential for solving water conflicts has yet to be seen in practice. Major barriers are found in the transaction costs of inter-institutional coordination, information gathering, property rights protection and enforcement, and strategic costs. For example, the institutional remapping grants new roles to old actors as well as old roles to new entities. In addition, sugarcane mills, rice, and coffee lobbies have presence in the legislative and block the appointment of managers in the newly created institutions. This paper argues that at the root of the problems is the inconsistency of setting advanced water objectives that land on weak institutions. Based on this, a number of prioritization, sequencing, and timing policy recommendations are drawn.
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A significant gap in the tourism and travel literature exists in the area of tourism destination branding. While interest in applications of brand theory to practise in tourism is increasing, there is a paucity of published research in the literature to guide destination marketing organisations (DMOs). In particular there have been few reported analyses of destination brand positioning slogans, which represent the interface between brand identity and brand image. Brand positioning is an inherently complex process, exacerbated for DMOs by the politics of decision making. DMOs must somehow capture the essence of a multi-attributed destination community in a succinct and focused positioning slogan, in a way that is both meaningful to the target audience and effectively differentiates the destination from the myriad of competitors offering the same features. Based on a review of the brand positioning literature and an examination of destination slogans used in the USA, Australia and New Zealand, the paper proposes a set of slogan criteria by which a DMO’s marketing manager, political appointees and advertising agency could be held accountable to stakeholders.
Book
Between 1870 and 1930, Latin American countries were incorporated into global capitalist networks like never before, mainly as exporters of raw materials and importers of manufactured goods. During this Export Age, entire regions were given over to the cultivation of export commodities such as coffee and bananas, capital and labor were relocated to new production centers, and barriers to foreign investment were removed. This book investigates the key role played by literature in imagining and interpreting the rapid transformations unleashed by Latin America’s first major wave of capitalist modernization. Using an innovative blend of literary and economic analysis and drawing from a rich interdisciplinary archive, this book provides the first extended evaluation of Export Age literary production. It traces the emergence of a distinct set of fictions, fantasies, and illusions that accompanied the rise of export-led, dependent capitalism. These “capital fictions” range from promotional pamphlets for Guatemalan coffee and advertisements for French fashions to novels about stock market collapse in Argentina and rubber extraction in the Amazon. The book explores how Export Age literature anticipated some of the key contradictions faced by contemporary capitalist societies, including extreme financial volatility, vast social inequality, and ever-more-intense means of exploitation. Questioning the opposition between culture and economics in Latin America and elsewhere, the book shows that literature operated as a powerful form of political economy during this period.
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Private ranchers survived the Mexican Revolution and the era of agrarian reforms, and they continue to play key roles in the ecology and economy of northern Mexico. In this study of the Río Sonora region of northern Mexico, where ranchers own anywhere from several hundred to tens of thousands of acres, Eric Perramond evaluates management techniques, labor expenditures, gender roles, and decision-making on private ranches of varying size. By examining the economic and ecological dimensions of daily decisions made on and off the ranch he shows that, contrary to prevailing notions, ranchers rarely collude as a class unless land titles are at issue, and that their decision-making is as varied as the landscapes they oversee. Through first-hand observation, field measurements, and intimate ethnographies, Perramond sheds light on a complex set of decisions made, avoided, and confronted by these land managers and their families. He particularly shows that ranching has endured because of its extended kinship network, its reliance on all household members, and its close ties to local politics. Perramond follows ranchers caught between debt, drought, and declining returns to demonstrate the novel approaches they have developed to adapt to changing economies and ecologies alikesuch as strategically marketing the ranches for wild-game hunting or establishing small businesses that subsidize their lifestyles and livelihoods. Even more importantly, he reveals the false dichotomy between private and communal ranching. Political Ecologies of Cattle Ranching in Northern Mexico is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of ranching in western North America.
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Surf tourism is a largely ignored mode of touristic behaviour in the academy. This investigation adds to a very limited body of work by providing explorations of the significance of surf tourism for surfers and by bringing forward data and observations of the impacts surf tourism has had on Playas Jacó and Hermosa, Costa Rica. Interview, statistical and observation data are used here to argue that: a surfer habitus creates dispositions for many surfers to travel to exotic coastal destinations on the periphery; surf trips to Costa Rica in many ways are experientially similar to pilgrimages; and that surf tourism can be seen to be directly and indirectly associated with many economic, environmental and socio-cultural costs and benefits to the local communities under study. Considering the applied dimension of surf tourism it is argued that surfers may indirectly set in motion a process of development and foreign investment into areas that are ill prepared for large numbers of visitors. © Berghahn Books and the Association for Anthropology in Action.
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Since the mid-1990s Nicaragua has turned to the undeveloped beaches of the Pacific to generate much-needed foreign exchange. This region, though, was not uninhabited. Indeed, hundreds of fishing families relied on the fecundity of the ocean to feed their families and to sell fish for international consumption. The growth of tourism brings threats to this form of living. Specifically, a Marine Protected Area (MPA), promulgated by large tourism operations may exclude fishermen from their most fertile fishing waters. This paper provides details about current use of the ocean by local fishermen and how that will be impacted by the implementation of the MPA. Resumen: Desde mediados de los 90s Nicaragua ha apostado por las playas vírgenes del Pacífico para atraer capital extranjero. Estas zonas vírgenes, sin embargo, no estaban despobladas. Por el contrario, cientos de familias pesqueras dependían de la productividad del oceano para vender pescados para consumo internacional y alimentar a sus familias. El crecimiento del turismo representa una amenaza para este modo de vida. Concretamente, la creación de un Area Marina Protegida (AMP), promovida por grandes proyectos turísticos en la zona, puede excluir a los pescadores de sus áreas más productivas de pesca. Este trabajo entrega detalles acerca del uso actual del mar por parte de los pescadores locales y cómo ese uso podría verse afectado por la implementación del AMP.
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Within the disciplines of sociology and anthropology, the main theoretical advances provided by the perspectives of authenticity, strangerhood, play and conflict have been made with respect to understanding tourists and how they are attracted by real or imaginary differences. However, it is only when a linguistic paradigm is adopted that it can be more clearly seen that the problem for the tourism industry resides in how to market such differences credibly and effectively in a competitive situation. Here, six non-mutually exclusive strategies have been inductively identified from the publicity material of several National Tourism Organizations: “vive la difference”, “the one and only”, “so much more”, “land of contrasts”, “super superlatives” and the “distinctive blend”. Employed separately and in combination, it must be asked if their continuous use simply constitutes harmless hyperbole or whether it is more of an ethical question of promotional irresponsibility.
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Feminist Political Ecology explores the gendered relations of ecologies, economies and politics in communities as diverse as the rubbertappers in the rainforests of Brazil to activist groups fighting racism in New York City. Women are often at the centre of these struggles, struggles which concern local knowledge, everyday practice, rights to resources, sustainable development, environmental quality, and social justice. The book bridges the gap between the academic and rural orientation of political ecology and the largely activist and urban focus of environmental justice movements.
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This paper examines the increased demand placed on limited water resources by a rapidly growing tourism sector in Playa Gigante, Nicaragua. Results from field campaigns suggest that recharge of the local aquifer may not meet burgeoning tourism demands for water. This paper also points to initial conflicts over water between locals and tourism operations, which are further complicated by ineffective implementation of national water policies and the common pool nature of groundwater. The conclusion discusses the need for more extensive research and better implementation of water policy through community governance and collaboration.
Article
Barbados is almost wholly reliant on groundwater as its source of water largely due to replenishment during the wettest 1–3 months of the year. Annual renewable freshwater resources place it in the top 15 of the world's most water scarce countries. Acknowledging the scope of the problem, government officials have noted that the amount of water available for economic activity has become very limited and might therefore affect future development. Most of the proposed measures to date have focused on mains replacement and increased energy efficiency but little thought has been given to demand-side management. This study therefore attempts to provide a framework for managing the water resources in the island's single largest industry: tourism. It is conceptualised that a system of tradable permits would not only enhance the management of water resources, but should also reduce the cost of water resources to hotels.
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This paper is a preliminary exploration of Third-World political ecology. In the first part of the paper, a framework for understanding the emerging research agenda is developed that embraces three critical areas of inquiry. These are: the contextual sources of environmental change; conflict over access; and the political ramifications of environmental change. Each of these areas of inquiry is addressed by way of a two-fold strategy—the relevant literature is first reviewed, and then central analytical issues are discussed. Throughout, it is suggested that Third-World political ecology represents an attempt to develop an integrated understanding of how environmental and political forces interact to mediate social and environmental change. In a world where environmental problems assume growing political significance, this form of integrated understanding is long overdue.
Article
The island of Mallorca is the main Balearic resort and sustainable water management is a key challenge for the economic and ecological sustainability of tourism as the main economic activity. The critical water supply situation on the island is being exacerbated by the extension of the tourist base to so-called “quality tourism”. Since the mid 1990s, low-density residential tourist land uses associated with second homes and more affluent urban dwellers have spread around existing mass tourist urban centres. Increasing water consumption for outdoor uses (gardens, swimming pools) is a direct consequence of this development. Available water consumption data mask the impact of residential tourism on water consumption levels. The objective of the present paper is to compare per capita water consumption in quality tourist, mass tourist and residential urban areas, and to provide quantitative information on the magnitude of water consumption by gardens and swimming pools as water-related leisure structures. The analysis combines water consumption data with a land use geodatabase at the sub-parcel scale, a detailed population inventory, and an estimate of pool water use. The results show that quality tourism produces higher water consumption levels per capita than mass tourism. Garden irrigation is the single main cause of the high water consumption in quality tourist areas and accounts for more than 70% of these areas’ total consumption in summer. But even in mass tourist and residential areas, garden irrigation accounts for up to 30% and 20%, respectively, of total water consumption in summer. Individually owned swimming pools cause an additional average water consumption of 22litres/person/day. The proliferation of swimming pools and lavish ‘Atlantic’ gardens may turn out as one of the biggest threats to sustainable water management on the island of Mallorca and in other tourist destinations adapting the quality tourist model.
Article
This article, which is based on field research conducted in 1994 and 1995, claims that the Nicaraguan proposal to provide land to former combatants failed to achieve its purported aim of rehabilitating them. While it succeeded in the short run in taking guns away from armed persons, it created expectations that could not be fulfilled and consequently fomented and prolonged postwar conflict. Failure was predictable given the existence of competing and mutually exclusive property claims (confiscated landowners demanding restitution and Sandinista agrarian reform beneficiaries demanding protection), but the plan also undermined the prospects for longer-term pacification and democratic consolidation in three ways. First, linking land rights to a veterans' program rewarded insurgent activity and marginalized nonpartisans, making the poor civilian majority the real losers. The Nicaraguan agrarian reform in the 1990s practically ignored demands from noncombatant landless peasants, while efforts to pacify the rearmed groups that multiplied quickly in the postwar period relied on extending additional and unrealistic promises of land distribution. Postwar agrarian policy, which privileged violent action, undermined the credibility of democratic processes, discouraged civic struggle, attracted noncombatants to armed protest, and extended the utility of wartime identities. Second, the use of privatization of state-owned enterprises as a way to satisfy the land demand of former combatants divided the elites from the bases within both the rebel and the official armies, as real or perceived inequalities in distribution shattered their esprit de corps and solidarity. This had the paradoxical effect of tactically realigning the upper strata of former antagonists in defense of their new material interests against the bottom strata who had been excluded from the process, refashioning the terms of struggle and prolonging postwar conflict. Third, while resources to accomplish the economic reintegration of the former combatants were unavailable, the elimination of protectionist barriers in the agricultural economy, the reduction of war activity, and tenure insecurity accelerated the development of a free market in land. The class interests of agrarian reform beneficiaries from both the Sandinista and the postwar period-who already feared future policy reversals-were undermined by market liberalization. Under these circumstances, relative peace offered opportunities for new capitalists associated with the ruling elite to engage in speculative land purchases.
Article
According to the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), tourism is ‘number one in the international services trade’, accounting for 40 per cent of global trade in services and 6 per cent of total world trade.1 The tourism industry directly provides around 3 per cent of global employment, or 192 million jobs – the equivalent to one in every twelve jobs in the formal sector. The International Labour Organization (ILO) predicts that this share is likely to rise to 251.6 million jobs by 2010, or one in every eleven formal sector jobs.2 Tourism also has an indirect impact beyond employment through tourism-related goods and services, air travel and global consumption patterns. The relevance of tourism for global political economy can no longer be ignored by analysts wishing to account for changing global patterns in poverty and inequality. Despite this, with a handful of exceptions, tourism as a significant feature of contemporary global political economy has thus far attracted little attention in the field of international political economy (IPE).3 Achieving United Nations (UN) specialised agency status in November 2003, UNWTO is the only international institution existing solely to promote the spread of the tourism industry across the globe.4 Its role can be understood in a number of ways: as a campaigning organisation for the tourism industry; as a donor for tourism development projects; and as the primary source of research and statistics on global tourism.As a result of the macroeconomic developmental benefits to be gained from the tourism industry – including employment and foreign exchange generation – a growing number of countries are generating ‘national tourism development plans’, in which tourism is seen as the foundation of a country's development.5 Playing a consultancy role in such strategies, UNWTO needs to be taken seriously not merely as an industry-specific UN agency, but as an organisation with the ability to influence national and international development policy, albeit within the confines of the dominant development paradigm. This essay introduces the UNWTO by analysing the emergence, structure and scope of the organisation. A review of the organisation's activities identifies two key aims that guide the institution: tourism as a tool for poverty reduction and development, and the further liberalisation of the tourism services sector. ‘Tourism development’ as framed by UNWTO is presented as a problematic process, because of the potential conflict between poverty reduction and liberalisation of the tourism industry.
Article
This paper is a synthesis and update of the geology of Nicaragua and a discussion of metallic and non-metallic mineral deposits. Nicaragua is divided into 15 departments and 2 autonomous territories, within an area of 130,700 km. The geologic environments include Paleozoic crystalline basement rocks, Mesozoic sedimentary and intrusive rocks, nearly continuous sedimentary sequences of Late Cretaceous to Pleistocene age, a broad area of Tertiary volcanic rocks, and Quaternary sedimentary and volcanic rocks that include several active volcanoes. These rocks have a dominant continental crust affiliation and are assigned to the Chortis Block, although there is evidence of fragments of oceanic-crust material. The structural framework is controlled largely by the NW-trending Middle America Trench, which marks the boundary between the Cocos and Caribbean plates. This trend is manifest in the Nicaraguan Depression, the chain of volcanoes that extend from western Panama to El Salvador, as well as fold axes within a forearc depositional basin. East of the Nicaraguan Depression, a northeast structural trend becomes important.There are some 94 metallic and 46 nonmetallic mineral deposits within the various geologic environments. Gold is mined from three deposits—Limon, Bonanza, and La Libertad—and limestone, gypsum, aggregates, and clay minerals are mined at six quarries. Nicaragua is the leading gold-producing country in Central America and the Caribbean Basin. Since the late 1930s more than eight million ounces of gold have been mined, mainly from epithermal and mesothermal veins (Limon, Bonanza), skarn zones (Siuna, Rosita), and various placer deposits. Geologic reserves are estimated at 6.5 million ounces. Other mineral commodities include silver, copper, zinc, limestone, aggregates, gypsum, and clay minerals. Brief descriptions of these and several other commodities are provided along with production statistics and general location maps.As a result of political unrest and nationalization of many foreign assets during the 1970s and 1980s, little exploration was conducted. However, the election of a stable, democratic government in the early 1990s and a revision of foreign investment regulations has resulted in an increase in exploration activity; nevertheless, much of the country remains underexplored.
Article
The World Bank, with its commitment to poverty alleviation has focused on facilitating enabling environments for investment and job generation by working with governments to strengthen the private sector in markets around the globe. The purpose of this note is to highlight some examples of the Bank's recent work in tourism and explore possible approaches for the future. Current World Bank efforts key to supporting tourism which benefits the poor is: 1) public/private dialogue engaging the broadest spectrum possible of stakeholders; 2) facilitation of public/private partnerships to address bottlenecks; and 3) holistic development which strengthens the value chain. Growing demand from client governments across Africa generated the need to build capacity and knowledge in this sector. Extensive research, commissioned by the World Bank in 2008 and 2009, considered the role of tourism in economies throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Findings indicate that tourism with diversified products, can reach the poor while protecting natural assets and conserving cultural heritage.
Article
This paper analyses the evolution of the theory and practice of tourism development aimed at poverty reduction in less economically developed countries (LEDCs). It critically reviews two central early themes in this area: community-based tourism projects, and the focus on structural conditions and power relations between global players and local communities. The paper considers the potential strengths of tourism development for LEDCs and summarises the many new subject area developments. A review of papers within the Journal of Sustainable Tourism's special issue on tourism and poverty reduction follows and four main themes are explored: development agency strategies and approaches, governance and biodiversity conservation, the assessment of tourism impacts and value chain analysis and inter-sectoral linkages. Key potential topics for future research and action are outlined, including: (1) the use of new techniques measuring tourism impacts, (2) the roles of development agency governance and operational practices, (3) how inequitable power relations and weak governance can undermine efforts, (4) the importance of private-sector business practices that contribute to poverty reduction, (5) the value of multidisciplinary quantitative and qualitative research tools and (6) the need for linkages between academic research and practitioner interventions.
Article
Problems of sustainability of water supply in tourist resorts are becoming an increasingly common and important issue in applied geography and environmental management. This paper examines the relationships between tourism and water supply on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, discussing both the scale of the problem and recent measures to find a solution, particularly the proposed Hydrological Plan for the Balearic Islands (published in 1998/9). Since Mallorca lies in an area likely to be seriously affected by future climate change, its potential effects are discussed and evaluated. One of the most critical problems relates to the coarse spatial resolution of general circulation models for predicting precipitation in an area where precipitation regimes grade steeply from semi-arid to humid temperate. However, it is likely that a continuation of the marked inter-annual and decadal-scale variability in precipitation seen during the recent past probably poses a greater threat to Mallorca’s water supply than the more gradual, progressive change typically predicted to accompany future global warming. Similarly, continued over-exploitation of coastal aquifers will be more critical to water quality issues than the direct impacts of any future sea level rise, although the latter would undoubtedly exacerbate these effects. The conclusion discusses the controversial new ecotasa (‘ecotax’), due to be imposed on Mallorca’s tourist industry in 2002, which is likely to represent only a partial solution to the long-term water supply problem. As the physical, cultural and economic environments of Mallorca are typical of much of the Mediterranean region, the implications of this issue extend well beyond the island’s shores.
Article
When a Third World country uses tourism as a development strategy, it becomes enmeshed in a global system over which it has little control. The international tourism industry is a product of metropolitan capitalist enterprise. The superior entrepreneurial skills, resources, and commercial power of metropolitan companies enables them to dominate many Third World tourist destinations. This paper outlines the dynamics of this process, particularly in the context of the South Pacific.RésuméL'Economie politique du tourisme du Tiers Monde. Quand un pays du Tiers Monde emploie le tourisme comme stratégie de développement, il s'empètre dans un systéme global dont il a peu de contrôle. L'industrie touristique internationale est un produit de l'entreprise capitaliste métropolitain. Les talents supérieurs des entrepreneurs, les ressources et le pouvoir commercial des compagnies métropolitains leur donnent la possibilité de dominer beaucoup de destinations touristiques au Tiers Monde. Cet article expose les grandes lignes de la dynamique de ce processus, en particulier dans le contexte du Pacifique du Sud.
Article
This article uses a political ecology approach to examine the relationships among tourism development, water, and environmental health in the Bay Islands, Honduras. It identifies the various stakeholders involved in the tourism industry, their relative power with respect to control of water resources, and distributional outcomes related to water quality and environmental health. Integrating the findings of ethnographic, survey, and environmental research conducted since 1991 in three communities, it shows that while the Islands' freshwater, land, and marine resources are jeopardized by unchecked tourism development, adverse affects are not distributed equally among various stakeholders. Reinforcing earlier findings focused on socioeconomic and nutritional outcomes, it concludes that while significant environmental degradation is attributable to the actions of powerful national and international stakeholders, it is the Islands' impoverished ladino immigrants and poor Afro-Antillean residents who are the most vulnerable to environmental health risks emanating from those activities.RésuméL'ecologie politique du tourisme. Cet article utilise une approche d'écologie politique pour examiner la relation entre le développement touristique, l'eau et la santé écologique des îles du golfe du Honduras. On identifie les intéressés de l'industrie touristique, leur pouvoir relatif pour contrôler les ressources d'eau, et les résultats de distribution pour la qualité de l'eau et la santé écologique. On conclut que les ressources de terre, d'eau fraîche et de mer sont compromises par le développement non maîtrisé du tourisme et que la dégradation écologique signifiante se doit aux actions des intéressés puissants. Les immigrés métis pauvres et les habitants afro-antillais pauvres sont les plus vulnérables aux risques écologiques de la santé qui proviennent de ces activités.
Article
Tourism represents a fundamental economic strategy for many cities, regions and countries around the world. Yet, it is also one of the main drivers of global environmental change and may have deleterious effects on a number of critical environmental vectors such as water. The development of tourism in Mediterranean region raises special concerns regarding water because of summer droughts and large concentrations of seasonal tourists. Nevertheless, tourist destinations are far from being homogeneous in their consumption of water and other resources. In this paper we argue that dense, high rise tourist centers tend to use comparatively less water than disperse, low density residential resorts, taking the case of Benidorm and the Alicante coast (Mediterranean Spain) as examples. Thus we seek to illustrate how water consumption may differ substantially depending on the predominant tourist land use patterns and their associated different densities (i.e., campsites, hotels, holiday resorts, apartments, residential homes, etc.). The observed different water consumption patterns reaffirm the heterogeneous nature and impacts of tourist activities and corroborate that density is a crucial variable for understanding the economic, social, and environmental effects of tourism.
Article
Many developing countries in the tropics have focused on tourism to generate additional income sources and to diversity the economy. Coastlines in particular have been on the forefront of tourist infrastructure development. Here, the presence of a large number of tourists has often had negative consequences for the sustainable use of the available resources, which in turn has had an effect on the integrity of the ecosystems. In this paper, the situation is described for the use of freshwater resources on the east coast of Zanzibar, Tanzania. This region is water poor, relying on freshwater derived from seasonal rains and stored in less efficient aquifers, which consist of freshwater lenses floating on the underlying seawater. Tourism in the area has grown rapidly in recent years and is expected to further increase in the future. This development is expected to put additional pressure on the freshwater resources of the east coast, which show already signs of over-use. The consequences of overexploitation can include the lowering of the groundwater table, land subsidence, deteriorating groundwater quality, and saltwater intrusion. These, in turn, determine the living conditions in coastal areas and the effects will be felt both by the local populations and the tourist industry. An investigation is made into the causes and consequences of water abstraction by the tourist industry. The results show that present levels of withdrawal are not sustainable, and parts of the local populations are already experiencing water deficits on a daily basis. In the future, if the expected increase in tourist numbers occurs, the pressure on the aquifers will correspondingly increase. The results could be that the tourism in the area becomes unsustainable, which could have an adverse effect on the national economy and also on the local population and environment. Therefore, a precautionary water-management approach is suggested.
Pilgrimage to the Playas
  • S M Krause
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Consultoría para la elaboración de un studio catastral en el litoral marino de Tola. Informe Final Abril
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