Relationships between Tourism, Urbanization and Ecosystem Service Value in the Cities of Xinjiang in Northwest China

Abstract

The relationships between urbanization and tourism have been explored in many studies. However, there is a lack of research on the relationships between urbanization, tourism development and ecosystem services in the cities of Xinjiang. To investigate these relationships, this research takes 2000–2020 as the research period, considers 14 major cities in Xinjiang, and applies the entropy approach to build assessment indicator systems of tourism and urbanization development. The service value of the ecosystem (ESV) is calculated using the improved equivalent factor. The changing attributions of tourism, urbanization development, and the ESV are discussed. The coupling coordination degree (CCD) approach is employed to analyze the connected collaboration of tourism, urbanization, and the ESV. The results show that the tourism and urbanization level of cities in Xinjiang has increased rapidly from 2000 to 2020. The total ESV has increased with a small rate. The CCD among tourism, urbanization, and ESV in Xinjiang has been relatively low, and it is in a state of moderate disorder, but it exhibits a trend of coordinated development. The CCD of ESV and tourism are lower than those of urbanization and ESV. Economic urbanization and tourism are highly coupled. From the perspective of the development trend, the level of economic urbanization is improving, and its CCD with the tourism subsystem is increasing. At the same time, the CCD between tourism and ESV is also on the rise. The tourism development level, urbanization level, and ESV, as well as the CCD among these indicators, show spatial differences.