Assessing tourism's global environmental impact 1900-2050
(2015) In Journal of Sustainable Tourism 23(5). p.639-659- Abstract
- This paper pioneers the assessment of tourism's total global resource use, including its fossil fuel consumption, associated CO2 emissions, fresh water, land, and food use. As tourism is a dynamic growth system, characterized by rapidly increasing tourist numbers, understanding its past, current, and future contributions to global resource use is a central requirement for sustainable tourism assessments. The paper introduces the concept of resource use intensities (RUIs), which represent tourism's resource needs per unit of consumption (e.g. energy per guest night). Based on estimates of RUIs, a first assessment of tourism's global resource use and emissions is provided for the period 1900-2050, utilizing the Peeters Global Tourism... (More)
- This paper pioneers the assessment of tourism's total global resource use, including its fossil fuel consumption, associated CO2 emissions, fresh water, land, and food use. As tourism is a dynamic growth system, characterized by rapidly increasing tourist numbers, understanding its past, current, and future contributions to global resource use is a central requirement for sustainable tourism assessments. The paper introduces the concept of resource use intensities (RUIs), which represent tourism's resource needs per unit of consumption (e.g. energy per guest night). Based on estimates of RUIs, a first assessment of tourism's global resource use and emissions is provided for the period 1900-2050, utilizing the Peeters Global Tourism Transport Model. Results indicate that the current (2010) global tourism system may require c.16,700 PJ of energy, 138 km(3) of fresh water, 62,000 km(2) of land, and 39.4 Mt of food, also causing emissions of 1.12 Gt CO2. Despite efforts to implement more sustainable forms of tourism, analysis indicates that tourism's overall resource consumption may grow by between 92% (water) and 189% (land use) in the period 2010-2050. To maintain the global tourism system consequently requires rapidly growing resource inputs, while the system is simultaneously becoming increasingly vulnerable to disruptions in resource flows. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/5401343
- author
- Gössling, Stefan LU and Peeters, Paul
- organization
- publishing date
- 2015
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- energy, food, fresh water, greenhouse gas emissions, land use, scenarios, tourism
- in
- Journal of Sustainable Tourism
- volume
- 23
- issue
- 5
- pages
- 639 - 659
- publisher
- Routledge
- external identifiers
-
- wos:000352584200001
- scopus:84926407955
- ISSN
- 0966-9582
- DOI
- 10.1080/09669582.2015.1008500
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- c8282d3e-bec4-4adc-8887-17c9fc716993 (old id 5401343)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 10:50:47
- date last changed
- 2023-01-02 07:58:07
@article{c8282d3e-bec4-4adc-8887-17c9fc716993,
abstract = {{This paper pioneers the assessment of tourism's total global resource use, including its fossil fuel consumption, associated CO2 emissions, fresh water, land, and food use. As tourism is a dynamic growth system, characterized by rapidly increasing tourist numbers, understanding its past, current, and future contributions to global resource use is a central requirement for sustainable tourism assessments. The paper introduces the concept of resource use intensities (RUIs), which represent tourism's resource needs per unit of consumption (e.g. energy per guest night). Based on estimates of RUIs, a first assessment of tourism's global resource use and emissions is provided for the period 1900-2050, utilizing the Peeters Global Tourism Transport Model. Results indicate that the current (2010) global tourism system may require c.16,700 PJ of energy, 138 km(3) of fresh water, 62,000 km(2) of land, and 39.4 Mt of food, also causing emissions of 1.12 Gt CO2. Despite efforts to implement more sustainable forms of tourism, analysis indicates that tourism's overall resource consumption may grow by between 92% (water) and 189% (land use) in the period 2010-2050. To maintain the global tourism system consequently requires rapidly growing resource inputs, while the system is simultaneously becoming increasingly vulnerable to disruptions in resource flows.}},
author = {{Gössling, Stefan and Peeters, Paul}},
issn = {{0966-9582}},
keywords = {{energy; food; fresh water; greenhouse gas emissions; land use; scenarios; tourism}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{5}},
pages = {{639--659}},
publisher = {{Routledge}},
series = {{Journal of Sustainable Tourism}},
title = {{Assessing tourism's global environmental impact 1900-2050}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2015.1008500}},
doi = {{10.1080/09669582.2015.1008500}},
volume = {{23}},
year = {{2015}},
}