Jiuzhaigou National Park (JNP) in Southwestern China is a renowned tourism destination for its spectacular landscape scenery this is made of rich biodiversity, majestic emerald lakes, cascading waterfalls, colorful forests, and snow-topped peaks. Traditional Tibetan culture is also quite fascinating. JNP attracts millions of tourists every year, and as a consequence increasing human activities have resulted in negative impacts on the natural ecosystems in the region. Thus, exploring sustainable tourism development in JNP is urgent and challenging. A better understanding of landscape pattern dynamics within JNP is a valuable first step in our assessment of social-ecological dynamics integral to sustainable tourism research. In this study, we analyze landscape pattern changes from 1974 to 2007 and relate them to measures of biodiversity and ecosystem services as well as to human activities that are responsible for these changes.

In order to help solve the complex conflicts between tourism development and ecological protection, we have developed a System Dynamics model of sustainable tourism for JNP, which is composed of several submodels, including environment, socio-economics, landscape design, and tourism management.

Results/Conclusions

We quantified the degree of fragmentation of JNP by comparing the landscape pattern of tourism areas with that of protected areas, and identified deforestation, cultivation, grazing, and tourism activities as four major driving forces that drive landscape pattern changes during the past 30 years. Because deforestation has been prohibited since 1978, and because all agricultural lands have been converted back to forest and grassland between 1991 and 2001, human activities, especially tourism activities, have been the major factor for landscape change in the past decade.

The simulation results of the model showed that human activities could have positive effects on the ecosystem services of JNP through sustainable management and sustainable landscape design. We also propose several management measures and design strategies for promoting the sustainable development of JNP.