Climate Change and Tourism - UNEP - Division of Technology ...

64 Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges
agricultural production, increase of natural hazards, coastal impacts, damage to infrastructure and the
increasing incidence of vector-borne diseases all impact on tourism in various ways.
In this Section some of the relationships between these changes and tourism impacts are examined in
summary. Other climate-induced environmental changes are described in more detail in the following
Sections of this Chapter when examining implications for key tourism destinations; mountains, islands
and coastal zones, and natural and cultural heritage destinations.
The projected decrease in rainfall levels in some of the world’s major tourism regions will very likely
affect current destinations, as well as future developments. In some areas this issue relates to potential
water scarcity, both shortages in water for basic needs as well as water distribution problems, relating
to competition for water between different sectors (e.g., agriculture and tourism), or between different
forms of use in tourism establishments (e.g., rooms, kitchen, cleaning, swimming pools, maintenance
of gardens, golf courses etc.) as opposed to their uses such as agriculture. UNEP 206 notes that the
tourism industry is an intensive water user, and the impacts of wasteful and inefficient use of the water
resources can be very detrimental. Examples include evidence from Israel, where water use by hotels
along the River Jordan is thought to be contributing to the drying up of the Dead Sea, with the water
level having dropped 16.4 metres since 1977. Additionally, golf tourism has an enormous impact on
water withdrawals – an eighteen-hole golf course can consume more than 2.3 million litres a day.
207 On average, a golf course requires 10–15,000 m 3 of water per hectare/year. A golf course covers
between 50–150 hectares, which means that the annual consumption of a golf course is around 1
million cubic metres per year, the equivalent of the water consumption of a city of 12,000 inhabitants.
208 These negative consequences of tourism on water supplies have to be considered in the broader
context with the many and varied positive consequences tourism brings to an area, including economic
stability and trade.
In addition to water problems relating to rainfall declines in some areas, water supplies stored in glaciers
and snow cover are also projected to decline, resulting in reduced water availability in summer seasons
in regions supplied by melt water from major mountain ranges. These mountain areas are not only
popular tourist destinations but more critically, they are also areas where more than one-sixth of the
world population currently lives. 209
Conversely, water excesses such as flooding, usually related to extreme weather events, will impact
on both natural and cultural heritage attractions in many regions. For example, major geological
problems identified for Italian cultural heritage sites relate to floods and associated landslides. 210
In Peru, intense precipitation during the 1997–1998 El Niño events have significantly contributed to
increased groundwater levels, causing damage to the earthen architectural structures at the Chan Chan
Archaeological Zone in the north of the country. 211 In the context of natural heritage attractions of
particular importance to tourism, it is estimated that 16% of the world’s coral reefs have been destroyed in
the 1997–1998 El Niño event. 212 In south and east Africa, this was compounded in 2000 by widespread
flooding resulting in increased rates of dying off of coral reefs, from 18.6% in 1999 to 51.3% in 2001.
213 Coral reefs are a major tourist attraction in many coastal and island areas around the world, so any
long-term damage arising from such incidents will have major implications for the industry.
The major impacts of climate change on biodiversity, ecosystems and landscapes can be categorized
into three broad areas: 214, 215, 216, 217
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impacts at different spatial scales; ecological communities, along environmental gradients, at the
regional level;
impacts on different environments: soil, rivers and estuaries, sea and coastal zones, terrestrial
ecosystems;
impacts on specific areas such as protected areas.
Between 20 and 30% of plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at risk of extinction
if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5 – 2.5° C. 218 The changes in biodiversity will, in
UNWTO, 9 July 2008