Identification and governance of potential land use conflicts in tourism resort based on ecological-production-living suitability

With rapid development in economy in China the demand for tourism has been changed exerting pressure on tourism resorts to transform and upgrade. As tourism area bears the responsibility of sustaining social and economic development, its land use has to be diversified, leading to a potential land use conflicts. However, there is a paucity of study on that and we attempt to address this knowledge gap. Assuming that a tourism resort should at least have ecological function, productivity and suitability for living (ecological-production-living suitability), we proposed an empirical model to identify and diagnose potential land use conflicts in tourism resorts by taking Wuyishan National Tourism Resort as an example. The potential land use conflict in resort was divided into five zones with different conflicting levels: zone without conflict, zone with mild conflict zone, zone with moderate conflict, zone with intense conflict, and zone with severe conflict. The conflict was divided into four levels: stable and controllable, quite controllable, slightly out of control, uncontrollable. Preliminary studies showed that there were significant differences in ecological-production-living suitability of the land use in this region, revealing existence of competitions and conflicts in land use. The results showed that the areas with land use conflict ranging from controllable to uncontrollable accounted for 17.76%, 35.59%, 22.37%, 23.74% and 0.55% of the whole area. The stable and controllable zone was mainly in the western, southeastern and central regions, and areas in the high-end health resort area, pastoral health resort area and eco-recreational area. The quite controllable zone was mainly in the transition zone from human production areas to the life and ecological protection area, including the waterfront recreation area and eco-recreational areas. The basic out-of-control conflicts were mainly distributed in the intensive activities of human production and life, which had both constructive and destructive conflicts. The serious out-of-control conflicts were smaller in area but deeper in degree. The spatial distribution, expression and conflict degree of potential land use conflict areas determined the conflict governance strategies should also be different. For example, strategies such as spatial control, quality improvement, and functional manifestation could be adopted according to local conditions. The framework of identification and governance of potential land use conflicts in tourist resorts proposed in this paper can accurately reflect the actual pattern of land use conflicts and can provide reference for the land use planning and management in tourist resorts. © 2019, Editorial Department of the Transactions of the Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering. All right reserved.