Swedish Ski Tourism and Climate Change : Agent-Based Modelling with Discrete Choice Experiment, the Ski Climate Index and Geographical Information Systems

• One main goal of sustainability is climate action, which is determined by the United Nations as one that encourages climate resilience and mitigating emissions. Sweden is a leading country to follow this global agenda with major efforts on decarbonization and adaptation. For these purposes, however, detailed analyses are required to assess the trajectories by and the impacts on various sectors. Regarding tourism, which is a main sector of the Swedish economy that significantly fosters regional development, not much scientific foundation has been laid so far. This is especially true for the highly climate-dependent ski tourism sub-sector, albeit Sweden is among the top players of the global ski market, following a growth trend unlike many other conventional destinations. This study aims for a detailed assessment on the vulnerability of Swedish ski tourism to climate change and its implications and consequences for resilience building and mitigation efforts by pursuing an interdisciplinary methodology that employs and combines discrete choice experiment, geographical information systems, agent-based modelling and the newly proposed Ski Climate Index. The specific research questions are; (1) “how exposed are the existing and the potential ski areas in Sweden to climate change?”, (2) “how sensitive and adaptive is the Swedish ski tourism market to climate change?”, and (3) “what are the potential risks of increased emissions due to adaptation efforts of the Swedish ski tourism sector as well as any counterproductivity associated with further introduction of mitigation policies, and what measures could be taken to avoid any increase in such ‘rebound’ effects?”. In this respect, the results are expected to provide the stakeholders with a thorough agenda for adaptation that takes account of its interrelationship with mitigation and to contribute to literature with the interdisciplinary methodology and the geographical scope. Implications for the Nordic and the global scales are further discussed.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Klimatforskning (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Climate Research (hsv//eng)

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