Spatial-temporal pattern and influencing factors of tourism ecological security in Huangshan City

Abstract

It is of important theoretical and practical value to scientifically evaluate tourism ecological security for the sustainable development of tourist cities. The study focuses on the “characteristics of the impact factors on tourism ecological security at different levels” of tourism ecological security that have been neglected in the previous literature. From the perspective of Compound Ecological systems theory, we built an evaluation index system for tourism ecological security in Huangshan City based on the Pressure-State-Impact-Economic-Environmental-Social (PSR-EES) model and used a combination of the entropy weight TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution) method, traditional and spatial Markov chains, and panel quantile regression to analyze and characterize the spatial-temporal dynamics of security levels and driving factors. The results showed that (1) the level of tourism ecological security of the districts and counties in Huangshan City improved rapidly, but the difference was expanding. The level of tourism ecological security in the four counties was generally higher than that in the three districts. (2) In terms of the spatial-temporal dynamic evolutionary characteristics, the transfer of tourism ecological security in Huangshan City has its characteristics of stability and path dependence. Type transfers usually occur between adjacent levels. The lower the level of tourism ecological security, the higher the probability of upward transfer. A neighborhood background plays an important role in the process by which a higher neighborhood rank increases the probability of upward transfer. (3) Regarding the driving factors, environmental pollution and economic development have a negative inhibitory effect on tourism ecological security, and the negative effect decreases as the level of TES improves. The top three positive effects were government intervention and educational levels. The degree of regional greening and government intervention had greater positive marginal effects on lower-level areas. In contrast, tourism development, educational level, and labor input had greater positive marginal effects on areas with higher TES levels.