Exploring the impacts of future tourism development on land use/cover changes

- Tourism development produces impacts on land use/cover.
- Land use policy role in framing the geographical distribution patterns of tourism development are understudied.
- Cellular automata models provide a suitable tool for assessing and exploring the impacts of tourism development on land use/cover.
- Coastal areas are subjected to tourism development impacts on LUCC.

Land use/cover changes (LUCC) are central to tourism because land is used in multiple ways as a resource for tourism-focused activities. Tourism is essentially a geographical phenomenon, encompassing the movement and flow of people (seen as the demand side) and spatial distribution patterns relating to land use consumption (seen as the supply side). However, the impacts of tourism on LUCC are difficult to track and monitor. Contributing factors of this problem include a lack of empirical studies, shortage of micro-level LUCC datasets, and scarce methodological frameworks which can be used for assessments. This paper aims to provide a LUCC modelling approach in order to explore the impacts of tourism development on built-up areas. We developed a Cellular automata model (CA) which integrates Markovian transition probabilities and logistic regression transition suitability maps. LUCC rules for tourism development are framed within the national land use policy guidelines for the development of new tourism accommodation establishments (TAE). This primarily takes into consideration land cover compatibility and the proposed development's proximity to the coastline.Three scenarios were established to explore the impacts of tourism development in LUCC for the year 2020 in a Portuguese coastal region: business as usual (BAU); tourism trends (TOUR); and natural restrictions (NATR). TOUR results indicate that the tourism and urban land use/cover growth is higher and focuses heavily on the coastal region (within 5,000 m) when compared to the other scenarios. The overall results for BAU and NATR show a general convergence with the land use policy guidelines in terms of tourism nucleation and new TAE distance to the coastline.