Spatio-temporal differentiation and dynamic evolution of tourism-related natural disasters in China
Natural disasters are important influencing factors for the high-quality development of destination tourism.This paper takes 4,102 tourism-related natural disasters in China from 2011 to 2019 as data source and uses the concentration index,spatial autocorrelation,standard deviation ellipse,and Markov chain to analyze the spatial differentiation and dynamic evolution process from the geographic spatio-temporal perspective.The study shows that:(1)China's tourism-related natural disasters are characterized by concentrated distribution and a range of types,including typhoons,fog,rainstorms,snow and ice,thunder and lightning,and strong winds that pose high-frequency disaster events.(2)Tourism-related natural disasters exhibit seasonal characteristics in time,with July-September being the high-incidence month with a obvious regional agglomeration effect in space.The high-incidence areas of disasters are found in East China,South China,and Southwest China.(3)Spatial heterogeneity and regional agglomeration are observed for different types of tourism-related natural disasters,and the local spatial correlation characteristics of disasters such as typhoons,collapses,landslides,and waves are obvious.(4)The trajectory of the centre of gravity of China's tourism-related natural disasters has changed considerably,and the overall distribution pattern is significantly impacted by the scale of disasters in the southeast and southwest regions.Moreover,the spatial pattern presents the"southeast-northwest"and"southwest-northeast"direction.The Markov chain transition probability matrix shows that the dynamic evolution of tourism-related natural disasters has a spatial locking effect and risk transfer effect.This study addresses the existing gaps in the analysis of the temporal and spatial dynamics of tourism-related natural disasters,providing theoretical support and a practical basis for preventing and managing natural disasters in tourist destinations.