Water Conservation Scenic Spots in China: Developing the Tourism Potential of Hydraulic Projects and Water Resources

摘要: The reservoir-related tourism industry has been developed for leisure purposes since the 1970s and gained popularity worldwide. To promote in China, Chinese government launched a “top-down” project titled “Water Conservation Scenic Spot” (WCSS) 2001. However, because of lack reasonable planning, innovative ideas, effective governance, there are some problems with WCSS constraining its development. deal those problems, it is necessary to have holistic understanding situation. This study analyses origin, status, opportunities, challenges development China. results show trend periodic increase number WCSSs between 2001 2016, unbalanced regarding regions types. Moreover, main issues include failure follow guidelines practice, weak awareness scientific educational function, monotonous planning construction, cultural preservation, insufficient funding, marketing, damaging natural resources, destruction clusters animals plants, land surface erosion, landscape pollution. These adverse effects can be alleviated by strengthening supervision fostering balanced development, promoting education protecting distributing funding enlarging popularity, controlling amount tourism, avoiding overexpansion. Overall, findings this encourage future significance supporting industry.