RESEARCH ON THE CARRYING CAPACITY OF TOURISM ENVIRONMENT IN THE YELLOW RIVER DELTA

The development of tourism should pay attention to the coordination and order of ecology and social economy. Ecotourism takes into account regional economic development and ecological protection, conforms to the development strategy of efficient ecological economy, and is an important part of the industrial structure of the efficient ecological economic zone in the Yellow River Delta. However, tourism started late and developed slowly in the efficient ecological economic zone of the Yellow River Delta. At the same time, the fragile ecological environment and reclamation activities make the importance of ecological protection in tourism development and tourism activities of this region particularly prominent. This study evaluated the ecological, spatial, facility and social environmental carrying capacities by building a multi-level evaluation model of tourism environmental carrying capacity and relying on the minimum limiting factor method, in order to identify the major limiting factors of the tourism environmental carrying capacity of the study area and to diagnose the major issues affecting the carrying capacity of the area. The result showed that:1) the tourism carrying capacity between 1995 and 2020 was severely overloaded, and the tourism environmental capacity of the high-efficiency ecological economic zone in the Yellow River Delta increased from -2885700 people per day to 116000 people per day in 2020. 2) Sewage treatment was the minimum limiting factor in 1995, and transportation facilities was the minimum limiting factor in 2020. Only the two indicators were overloaded, other indicators were weak load; all other indications were either not loaded or only slightly loaded. 3) In 1995, the carrying capacity of tourism environment was mainly limited by the capacity of ecological environment, while in 2020, space>social>ecological>facilities were the secondary indicators of the Yellow River Delta's high-efficiency ecological economic zone's environmental capacity. 4) The overcrowding of tourism facilities in the Yellow Delta contradicted the underutilization of resources and the weak loading of the ecological and spatial environments, including wetland ecological indicators. However, there was still enough of potential for tourist expansion from appropriate loading. The carrying capacity of the biological environment had decreased during the past 25 years, despite a general increase in the capacity of the tourism environment due to a more rapid increase in visitor numbers. In this paper, we clarified the tourism development space that wetland ecology could support, identified the main limiting factors of tourism development, and analyzed the tourism development status of high-efficiency ecological economic zones in the Yellow River Delta from the perspective of tourism environmental carrying capacity. The research results also provided scientific basis and data support for solving the problem of environmental overload and weak load, realizing the rational use of resources and promoting the orderly and coordinated development of regional eco-economy.