Purpose
This paper aims to analyse the most significant disruptive events affecting tourism during the twenty-first century, particularly the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
Based ...on a thorough literature review, this study takes a complexity science approach to the field of tourism to shed light on the challenges of disruptive events in tourism systems.
Findings
Focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, this study acknowledges that disruptive events are complex and have tremendous impacts on several areas of society: people’s psychological well-being and the health-care system, as well as social, economic, cultural, technological, environmental and political dimensions. Whether they occur alone or interact, these dimensions add varying levels of complexity to the tourism system. In response, the tourism industry can adopt a resilience model as a crisis management tool to address disruptive events affecting this field.
Research limitations/implications
As this paper is mainly theoretical, future empirical research will contribute to refining the findings and testing the usefulness of the proposed model.
Practical implications
The paper looks at examples of successful and unsuccessful of COVID-19 outbreak management in various countries to analyse issues such as crisis management, resilience and tools for coping with the impacts of disruptive events.
Originality/value
This theoretical paper proposes a first taxonomy of the multidimensional impacts of twenty-first-century disruptive events on tourism and dissects the phases of crisis management, with a corresponding conceptual model.
21世纪旅游业破坏性事件的危机管理和影响建模：以新型冠状病毒肺炎大流行为例研究目的
本文分析了21世纪影响旅游业的最为重要的破坏性事件, 尤其关注2020年新型冠状病毒肺炎大流行
研究设计/方法论/方法
本文将复杂性科学方法应用于旅游领域, 通过全面的文献综述, 揭示破坏性事件给旅游系统带来的挑战。
研究结果
本文承认破坏性事件, 特别是新型冠状病毒肺炎大流行, 复杂且影响巨大, 涉及心理、医疗、社会、经济、文化、技术、环境和政治等诸多方面。这些影响不管是单一的还是相互作用的, 都在不同程度上增加了旅游系统的复杂性。旅游业可以将弹性模型作为危机管理工具, 以应对其领域内的破坏性事件。
原创性
本文首次提出了21世纪破坏性事件对旅游业的多维影响的分类法, 并对危机管理的各个阶段进行了剖析。本文还提出了一个综合模型。
研究局限性/意义
由于本文以理论为主, 未来的实证研究将有助于完善研究结果和验证所提出模型的实用性。
实践意义
本文着眼于不同国家新冠疫情管理的成功和失败案例, 分析危机管理、复原力以及应对破坏性事件影响的方法等问题。
Creación de un modelo de gestión de crisis e impactos de los eventos disruptivos en turismo del siglo XXI: el caso de la pandemia del COVID-19
Propósito
Identificar los eventos disruptivos mundiales más importantes que han afectado el turismo en el siglo XXI poniendo especial atención en la pandemia causada por el COVID-19 en el 2020.
Diseño/metodología/enfoque
Mediante un enfoque a las ciencias de la complejidad aplicado al turismo y una exhaustiva revisión bibliográfica, este artículo esclarece el reto que significa un evento disruptivo en el turismo.
Resultados
Los eventos disruptivos, en particular el COVID-19, son complejos y generan un alto impacto tanto en el aspecto psicológico, sanitario, social, económico, cultural, tecnológico, medioambiental y político. En su interacción, todos ellos añaden un diferente grado de complejidad al sistema del turismo. Este artículo propone adoptar un modelo de resiliencia como herramienta de gestión de crisis para afrontar eventos disruptivos en el campo del turismo.
Originalidad
Proponer una primera clasificación de los impactos multidimensionales de los eventos disruptivos del siglo XXI en el turismo y un desglose de las fases de gestión de crisis, como así también proponer un modelo integrador de ambos aspectos propios de un evento disruptivo.
Limitaciones de la investigación/implicaciones
Debido al carácter teórico de este artículo, el modelo integrador sugerido representa un marco prometedor para futuras investigaciones en el plano empírico.
Implicaciones practices
Este artículo presta atención a aquellos países que han gestionado la pandemia de forma exitosa o no, para así tener una mejor noción de gestión de crisis y herramientas para hacer frente a futuros eventos disruptivos.
The aim of this work is to quantify the relative contribution to the overall environmental impact of the construction phase compared to the operational phase for a large conventional activated sludge ...wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). To estimate these environmental impacts, a systematic procedure was designed to obtain the detailed Life Cycle Inventories (LCI) for civil works and equipment, taking as starting point the construction project budget and the list of equipment installed at the Girona WWTP, which are the most reliable information sources of materials and resources used during the construction phase. A detailed inventory is conducted by including 45 materials for civil works and 1,240 devices for the equipment. For most of the impact categories and different life spans of the WWTP, the contribution of the construction phase to the overall burden is higher than 5% and, especially for metal depletion, the impact of construction reaches 63%. When comparing to the WWTP inventories available in Ecoinvent the share of construction obtained in this work is about 3 times smaller for climate change and twice higher for metal depletion. Concrete and reinforcing steel are the materials with the highest contribution to the civil works phase and motors, pumps and mobile and transport equipment are also key equipment to consider during life cycle inventories of WWTPs. Additional robust inventories for similar WWTP can leverage this work by applying the factors (kg of materials and energy per m3 of treated water) and guidance provided.
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•Detailed civil works and equipment inventories for a large WWTP are provided.•Construction share of the environmental impacts is higher than 5%.•For metal depletion, construction can represent >60% of impacts.•Differences are observed when comparing to Ecoinvent inventories.
A multitude of pharmaceuticals enter surface waters via discharges of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), and many raise environmental and health concerns. Chemical fate models predict their ...concentrations using estimates of mass loading, dilution and in-stream attenuation. However, current comprehension of the attenuation rates remains a limiting factor for predictive models. We assessed in-stream attenuation of 75 pharmaceuticals in 4 river segments, aiming to characterize in-stream attenuation variability among different pharmaceutical compounds, as well as among river segments differing in environmental conditions. Our study revealed that in-stream attenuation was highly variable among pharmaceuticals and river segments and that none of the considered pharmaceutical physicochemical and molecular properties proved to be relevant in determining the mean attenuation rates. Instead, the octanol–water partition coefficient (Kow) influenced the variability of rates among river segments, likely due to its effect on sorption to sediments and suspended particles, and therefore influencing the balance between the different attenuation mechanisms (biotransformation, photolysis, sorption, and volatilization). The magnitude of the measured attenuation rates urges scientists to consider them as important as dilution when aiming to predict concentrations in freshwater ecosystems.
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•In-stream attenuation was highly variable among pharmaceuticals and river segments.•Kow influenced attenuation through effect on sorption to sediments.•Likely coupling between pharmaceuticals and phosphorus attenuation.•In-stream attenuation as important as dilution to explain concentrations.
Current wastewater management practices underutilize wastewater as a valuable source of water, energy, and essential plant nutrients. A new paradigm shift is needed, one that integrates the ...water-energy-food nexus into wastewater management. Decentralized wastewater management has the power to redefine not only the urban water cycle but also reshape society towards a more economic and environmentally sustainable future.
Climate change severely affects urban water systems (UWSs). Infrastructure historically designed for milder conditions cannot manage growing water demands and extreme events. To obtain a resilient ...water sector, adaptation and mitigation strategies must address rising water challenges while striving for net-zero emissions. Researchers have noted that extreme decentralization is positively associated with closing cycles while reducing transport costs. However, part of the scientific community defends centralized schemes due to economies of scale. The objective of this systematic review is to understand the trade-offs associated with the adoption of different scales at UWSs design and how this impacts system resilience. This process includes identifying different scale trade-offs and unique environmental aspects that influence the optimal scale suitability. A clear distinction was made in terms of scale concept and classification, considering different design levels. That is, considering the UWS at the city level and water management units (WMUs) at the local level. Similarly, a classification of different scales for each level, covering all water streams—supply, wastewater, and stormwater—was introduced. We defined the key environmental aspects that influence the optimal scale and location suitability: ten at the city-catchment level and eleven at the site-neighbourhood level. Scale impacts three major UWSs functionalities that have repercussions on urban resilience: net energy, net water, and ecosystem services (ES).
The development and application of new forms of automation and monitoring, data mining, and the use of AI data sources and knowledge management tools in the water sector has been compared to a ...‘digital revolution’. The state-of-the-art literature has analysed this transformation from predominantly technical and positive perspectives, emphasising the benefits of digitalisation in the water sector. Meanwhile, there is a conspicuous lack of critical literature on this topic. To bridge this gap, the paper advances a critical overview of the state-of-the art scholarship on water digitalisation, looking at the sociopolitical and ethical concerns these technologies generate. We did this by analysing relevant AI applications at each of the three levels of the UWC: technical, operational, and sociopolitical. By drawing on the precepts of urban political ecology, we propose a hydrosocial approach to the so-called ‘digital water ‘, which aims to overcome the one-sidedness of the technocratic and/or positive approaches to this issue. Thus, the contribution of this article is a new theoretical framework which can be operationalised in order to analyse the ethical–political implications of the deployment of AI in urban water management. From the overview of opportunities and concerns presented in this paper, it emerges that a hydrosocial approach to digital water management is timely and necessary. The proposed framework envisions AI as a force in the service of the human right to water, the implementation of which needs to be (1) critical, in that it takes into consideration gender, race, class, and other sources of discrimination and orients algorithms according to key principles and values; (2) democratic and participatory, i.e., it combines a concern for efficiency with sensitivity to issues of fairness or justice; and (3) interdisciplinary, meaning that it integrates social sciences and natural sciences from the outset in all applications.
Biogas production is a growing market and the existing conversion technologies require different biogas quality and characteristics. In pursuance of assisting decision-makers in biogas upgrading an ...environmental decision support system (EDSS) was developed. Since the field is rapidly progressing, this tool is easily updatable with new data from technical and scientific literature through the knowledge acquisition level. By a thorough technology review, the diagnosis level evaluates a wide spectrum of technologies for eliminating siloxanes, H2S, and CO2 from biogas, which are scored in a supervision level based upon environmental, economic, social and technical criteria. The sensitivity of the user towards those criteria is regarded by the EDSS giving a response based on its preferences. The EDSS was validated with data from a case-study for removing siloxanes from biogas in a sewage plant. The tool described the flow diagram of treatment alternatives and estimated the performance and effluent quality, which matched the treatment currently given in the facility. Adsorption onto activated carbon was the best-ranked technology due to its great efficiency and maturity as a commercial technology. On the other hand, biological technologies obtained high scores when economic and environmental criteria were preferred. The sensitivity analysis proved to be effective allowing the identification of the challenges and opportunities for the technologies considered.
This research analyses the construction of critical discourses on tourism in the city of Girona, an emerging urban satellite destination close to Barcelona. Qualitative interviews and thematic ...analysis are used to analyze the voices of stakeholders involved in the destination's social debate. Findings include the transformation of neighborhood identities, banalization and thematization, the massification of public spaces, an increase in the cost of buying and renting property, and a lack of tourism management. This study also suggests that the critical discourse found in Barcelona is being echoed by local residents in Girona. To our knowledge, no previous study has investigated this relationship to date. Findings from this research can be exported to other emerging urban destinations to help understand the complexities of the critical discourses on the negative effects of tourism, and the ways in which they are created, shared, exported and reproduced among destinations.
In this paper, we present an agent-based model for exploring the interplay of basic structural and socio-cognitive factors and conventional water saving measures in the evolution of domestic water ...use in metropolitan areas. Using data of Barcelona, we discuss three scenarios that involve plausible demographic and cultural trends. Results show that, in the three scenarios, aggregate outcomes are consistent with available conventional modelling (while total water use grows, per capita water use declines); however, the agent-based simulation also reveals, for each scenario, the different dynamics of simple policy measures with population growth, cultural trends and social influence; thus providing unexpected insights for policy design.
This paper explores the potential of integrated management of neighboring wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The novelty lies in the integration of environmental aspects, with the application of ...life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology, together with economic criteria for the selection of best alternatives. A case study illustrates how the connection of neighboring wastewater systems by constructing an extra pipeline provides positive results in the economic assessment, and in the majority of the LCA categories used in the global environmental assessment. The consideration of local environmental constraints suggests that the usage of the connection should be limited to periods when the minimum ecological flow in the river section between the discharges of the two WWTPs is maintained. In this particular case, the scenario that promotes the usage of the connection between the two WWTPs (but with some restrictions in dry weather periods) is preferred because it provides cost savings of 45,053€·year−1 and satisfies environmental criteria. A scenario analysis has been conducted to evaluate the influence of the pipe length on both economic and environmental aspects and the influence of individual cost terms on the economic assessment.
•Integrated management of neighboring wastewater treatment plants was assessed.•Environmental and economic aspects were considered.•Environmental impacts were minimized with the integrated operation.•The investment to connect the two wastewater treatment plants was viable.
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