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Tourism is booming on global level since many decades and developing countries often capture tourism as a lever to push up their economy. Many regions in Vietnam invest lots of money in this development hoping to change the traditional economic structure. Located in the North Central Vietnam, about 170 km from Ha Noi capital to the south at the coastline, Sam Son is known as an ideal location for holiday makers. Currently the number of tourist has been counted to millions. Realizing its potential, the local authorities decided to enlarge and improve tourism to become the biggest tourism center in the North Central part of Vietnam. As many mass tourism destinations, Sam Son is facing several hidden drawbacks, which are generated by a (too) fast growth. Thats why unexpected problems may occur very soon. One path to mitigate weaknesses and to strengthen the positive impacts of tourism is to develop tourism in a more sustainable manner. As the very first step Sam Son needs to delineate a proper strategy and to establish a powerful "Destination Management System". Although several studies have been conducted already, the destination lacks reliable empirical data. This research intends to fill the gap by supplying concrete information with specific focus on “making tourism more sustainable”. In the study methodological triangulation has been applied to collect data and information. Besides literature review and secondary data analysis, two surveys - statistically well secured - have been conducted: A household survey with more than one thousand questionnaires to record the situation and opinion of local people and a visitor survey with 1139 face-to-face interviews to collect structural data about current guests in Sam Son as well as to explore their behaviour. Moreover expert and stakeholder interviews were included to supplement the information basis. As the research acquired the information directly from local people and from tourists by face-to-face interviews several weaknesses could be unveiled which official statistical data cannot show. There are three facets out of balance in terms of economic benefit: Compared with the political awareness and the financial support the tourism sector does not ensure the livelihood of an adequate number of people; the economic benefits from tourism are very unequally distributed and also the spatial dimension indicates a strong imbalance - only people living directly in the core area of tourism participate in tourism sector, the positive impact of tourism does not reach till the outskirts. In addition social and environmental problems are recognized by a majority of local people as consequences of tourism in the region. Regarding the touristic demand side a very low level of satisfaction has been detected: A small variety and low quality of touristic offers are the main reasons of dissatisfaction. The most exiting finding is that tourists treasure environment in the destination, whereas this aspect is underestimated in the locals view. In addition, tourists are really willing to pay for an improvement of environmental and touristic quality! Even if the amount of voluntary payments is very low, the total sum can enable the local government to develop the destination in a very proper way. Although this is a case study the results deliver valuable information and furthermore a concrete delineated roadmap for all destinations, which are in the same situation as Sam Son today. It is an example how to analyze and evaluate the present condition and how to continue in a proper way towards a more sustainable tourism development.
Urban Green Areas – their functions under a changing lifestyle of local people, the example of Hanoi
(2013)
Hanoi is a rapidly developing city - in terms of area, population and economy. It also has to face social and environmental problems that often accompany the fast development of a city. Increasing environmental pollution leads to a decrease in living conditions, such as clean water, housing, social services, etc., for most of the city’s inhabitants. Other well-known social problems in cities worldwide also occur in Hanoi nowadays, for example inequality, food supply, and unemployment. In addition, the society is altering; lifestyle- change is a permanent process. Today, it seems that the changing process in Asian countries is rather leap-frogging than continuously. Although many research projects concerning to urban green areas in Hanoi have been completed recently, less is known about utilization of parks&gardens in a practical and systematic way. This study aims at contributing to fulfills the gaps with up-to-date facts and figures of parks’ utilization in the inner city of Hanoi. Based on “grounded theory”, triangular methodology was applied to collect empirical data in four main parks in the inner city of Hanoi namely: Thong Nhat, Bach Thao, Hoan Kiem, and Lenin. Scientific observations, visitor countings were done in 2010-2011; including 2143 face-to-face interviews to park users covering the course of the year and a small online-poll of 113 responses. Thirteen interviews with experts have been done in several phases and taken into account for discussing and testing hypotheses. Empirical results have shown that utilization of the parks is in abundance in terms of the use - numbers as well as activities. A comparison between the courses of the day for parks in Berlin and Hanoi shown that the time of using parks in Hanoi is earlier in the day. In details, there is 25% and 1.4% of total daily visitors went to parks in Hanoi and Berlin,, respectively. However, the biggest peak in park-visiting time for both cities is in the afternoon. The findings also clarified that students and retirees are the major users even though there is some different in structures of park user among the four parks. The length of stay depends on how large and interesting a park is. In this aspect, Hanoi parks are very poor in facilities showing by a long list of missing facilities in the parks. However, as there is no alternative, parks in Hanoi still attract a high number of visitors. In general, results from this study have shown a close relationship among socio-economic and political situations in Vietnam with UGAs and its utilization. Influencing factors on parks’ utilization were also indentified, which are social changes, lifestyle changes, economic situation, conflicts in land usage, and maintaining cost for UGAs. Three given hypotheses were confirmed: i) the demand of public UGAs in inner Hanoi will grow mid-term and increase strongly long-term; ii) Hanoi’s residents will claim strongly for more parks in the future; ii) The number of conflicts inside the area of UGAs, among the visitors will occur very soon and require a specific master plan for the development and the management of UGAs. Finally, based on the weaknesses of UGAs in Hanoi recently, two groups of recommendations were also suggested to improve UGAs. Firstly, in terms of quality – quantity: • Retain each square meter of green space as UGA – do not unblock any green space for construction; • The existing UGA have to be well maintained. Secondly, in terms of management – planning: • Elaborate a UGA-masterplan for (inner) Hanoi; • Keep UGA management in the responsibility of public bodies; • Implement participation of affected population defector in the process of planning and management (as it has already been written in planning guidelines); • Be aware of potential conflicts among park user groups; • Establish an UGA monitoring system – involving regular (or even permanent) countings based on up-to-date technology; Realize horizontal partnering structures.
This thesis aims at improving the current representation of adaptation in economic frameworks of climate change by a) accounting for the time-dependent evolution of the adaptive capacities of countries and b) quantifying unwelcome feedbacks of the adaptation process. In this context, it is proposed that economic assessments of climate change incorporate adaptation as a cyclic and phase-dependent process while devising their cost methodologies. A phase-dependent process acknowledges the existence of adaptation barriers while a cyclic process accounts for potential unwanted feedbacks of adaptation. By analyzing economic assessments against this framework, it is shown that dependencies between phases of adaptation and phases altogether are often disregarded. Furthermore, potential negative consequences associated with adaptation are rarely considered and adaptation is generally assumed to be unconstrained. The assumption of unconstrained adaptation is only acceptable in the context of high adaptive capacity. This concept was further investigated through a review of vulnerability assessments regarding their operation of the adaptive capacity component. It was found that adaptive capacity is mostly equated to proxies that reflect the knowledge, financial and livelihood capacities of the system under analysis. With this theoretical considerations in mind, a dynamic representation of adaptive capacity was elaborated at a country-level. The Human Development Index (HDI) was used as a proxy of the adaptive capacity of countries and its evolution in time extrapolated. The time required for countries to achieve developed world standards of human development was then estimated. The results indicate that between 2005 and 2020, half of the world population will live in countries with low adaptive capacity. This percentage is then progressively reduced to 15% in the year 2050, with marked regional differences. The time required for a country to achieve an appropriate level of development sets a clear constraint on when, and to what extent, the country can engage on climate change adaptation. This does not imply that adaptation will not take place before development occurs. Rather, it calls for adaptation options to be tailored in order to t the current and future adaptive capacities of countries. Obtaining higher levels of adaptive capacity is likely to be associated with negative consequences for the climatic system. The statistical relation between HDI and per-capita emissions of countries was established and future projections made. Between 2010 and 2050 approx. 300 Gt of CO2 are estimated to be associated with the increase of adaptive capacities of current developing countries. This value represents about 30% of the allowed CO2-budgets to restrict global temperatures to an increase of 2 degrees by 2100 compared to pre-industrial times - conditional to a 25% risk of failing to meet the target. For the case of sea-level rise, the modelling framework DIVA (Dynamic Interactive Vulnerability Assessment) was used in order to illustrate the drawbacks of a simplistic representation of adaptation. The results show that adaptation via the construction of protective infrastructure might be economically feasible for particular countries. For others, modeled results fail to provide a clear choice between adaptation or inaction. The assumption of unconstrained adaptation resulted in the valuation of costly protection options whose financial and knowledge requirements can be at odds with the capacities of some coastal countries - namely developing countries. Further, infrastructural protection as adaptive measure to prevent coastal damages can have the counter-productive effect of raising the amount and value of assets at risk. This is a direct result of DIVA disregarding the potential unwelcome feedbacks of adaptation itself. In conclusion, the full potential of economic assessments of climate adaptation is likely to remain unlocked as long as adaptation continues to be misrepresented. The methodologies discussed in this work provide a way forward to alleviate this deficiency in forthcoming assessments. For the case of sea-level rise, the modeling framework DIVA (Dynamic Interactive Vulnerability Assessment) was used in order to illustrate the drawbacks of a simplistic representation of adaptation. The results show that adaptation via the construction of protective infrastructure might be economically feasible for particular countries. For others, modeled results fail to provide a clear choice between adaptation or inaction. The assumption of unconstrained adaptation resulted in the valuation of costly protection options whose financial and knowledge requirements can be at odds with the capacities of some coastal countries - namely developing countries. Further, infrastructural protection as adaptive measure to prevent coastal damages can have the counter-productive effect of raising the amount and value of assets at risk. This is a direct result of DIVA disregarding the potential unwelcome feedbacks of adaptation itself. In conclusion, the full potential of economic assessments of climate adaptation is likely to remain unlocked as long as adaptation continues to be misrepresented. The methodologies discussed in this work provide a way forward to alleviate this deficiency in forthcoming assessments.