The Environmental Early Warning Management of Water Resources Carrying Capacity of Ski Resorts in China

Wang, P.; Zhu, Z.Q., and Fei, Y.H., 2020. The environmental early warning management of water resources carrying capacity of ski resorts in China. In: Bai, X. and Zhou, H. (eds.), Advances in Water Resources, Environmental Protection, and Sustainable Development. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 115, pp. 430-433. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.Under the background of global warming, it has become a common choice for most ski resorts to ensure or even extend the operating period of ski resorts through artificial snow making. Many artificial snow making causes serious waste of water resources and ecological damage, which aggravates the water resources crisis in the ski resort area. Therefore, the environmental early warning management of water resources carrying capacity of ski resorts is directly related to the satisfaction of tourists and the ecological balance of tourist areas. According to the characteristics of skiing tourism resources, with the help of ecological footprint evaluation model, Northern China is selected as the evaluation object to calculate the water resources carrying capacity of skiing tourism area. Based on these, the early warning interval and grade of the environmental capacity of ski tourism resources were determined. The result showed that there were increasing trends of regional water resources ecological footprint in 2010-2019 (3.76-3.85 ha/cap), accompanied by decreasing water capacity (1.28-1.20 ha/cap), but expanding ecological deficit (2.48-2.65 ha/cap). The distribution patter of water footprint and the degree of sustainable development varied distinctly from area to area in Northern China and the lowest value of environmental early warning index (EEWI) was presented in North China in 2019. Consequently, increasing in the water resources recycling rate and reducing in human demand due to technological advances or other factors are the most effective ways to control within a reasonable range of the environmental capacity of ski tourism resources.