Water pollution caused by tourism development in the Lijiang Ancient Town, Yunnan Province

Water pollution caused by tourism development not only occurs in water-scarce areas but also exists in the areas where water resource is relatively abundant. In this paper, the relationship between water pollution and tourism development in the Lijiang Ancient Town was discussed because there were no industrial or agricultural pollutant sources except the tourism pollution. Meanwhile, questionnaires survey was adopted to find the causes and influences of water quality deterioration related to tourism development. The results show that tourism in the Lijiang Ancient Town grows rapidly in recent years and at the same time, water quality is sharply deteriorated. The Present fashion of water utilization is not sustainable, and parts of the local residents have already complained about the water quality degradation. Increasing numbers of tourists, superabundant service infrastructures such as shops, refreshment rooms and hotels, insufficient management measures in addition, all these resulted in water quality decline. Countermeasures on water management approaches were suggested in order to deal with the current water pollution and make the tourism development sustainable.