Review of studies on environmental impacts of tourism waste

Tourism environmental impact has been a core issue in Tourism studies and its investigation has originated from 1960s abroad while it attracted researcher's attention till early 1980s in China. Although the impacts of tourism development on natural and social environment has been recognized, systematic studies of destination environment and its sustainable development in evaluation models, measure approaches, determinant factors, mechanism, integrative measures and management are still relatively rare. Researchers and policymakers pay much attention to the particular region, but give little consideration to that environmental impact of tourism development has the characteristics of interregional diffusion, spatial shift and worldwide influence of ecological liability. Therefore how to investigate the tourist environmental impact thoroughly and how to realize sustainable development from a broad perspective is a theoretical and empirical issue. This paper gives the definition of tourist wastes from the characters of tourism ecosystem cycle of substances and energy. Based on the abroad related literatures of tourism wastes studies published in recent years. It is found that the relative studies covered a wide range regarding their contents and study areas, including tourism waste of tourism exploitation, tourist and tourist corporation activities. But in China, the studies on the tourism wastes are still on the initial stage. The suitable management system for handling the tourism wastes has not been established in China. Some key issues of tourism waste should be Strengthen the research, such as follows. First, research the concept of tourism waste, type, production process and mechanism. Second, analyze the correlations between tourism waste and socio-economic, cultural life. Third, discuss the recycling use of waste tourism. Fourth, Eco-efficiency of tourism waste. Fifth, CO2 emissions of tourism industry and the global climate change. Sixth, assessment the enviro- - nmental and ecological impacts of tourism waste.