Urban Geoheritage Sites Under Strong Anthropogenic Pressure: Example from the Chaohu Lake Region, Hefei, China
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Urban Geoheritage Sites Under Strong Anthropogenic Pressure: Example from the Chaohu Lake Region, Hefei, China Weilun Kong 1 & Yunhuai Li 2 & Kongliang Li 1 & Mo Chen 1 & Yan Peng 1 & Degao Wang 1 & Lijun Chen 1 Received: 11 July 2019 / Accepted: 26 June 2020 # The European Association for Conservation of the Geological Heritage 2020
Abstract Urban geoheritage sites are vulnerable to anthropogenic pressure linked to urbanisation. To understand the necessity of conservation of the geological heritage of the Chaohu Lake region of Hefei (China), the first assessment of the geological sites in the area was undertaken based on in-depth field studies and a literature review. The area possesses significant geoheritage of 16 types, the most important being stratigraphical and palaeontological. In the lake region, geoheritage is being destroyed by rapid and often uncontrolled (even illegal) urbanisation and a shortage of strategies for the popularisation of Earth sciences, as well as the weakness of practical strategies for geo-knowledge transfer and the unsustainable pursuit of economic benefits by government. Many important sites have been damaged and destroyed. Some aesthetic properties have also been lost, reducing the significance of these geological features for tourists, as well as students and researchers. Designation of an official protected zone and possible geopark creation could facilitate efficient conservation of the urban geoheritage of Hefei. Keywords Anthropogenic pressure . Geotourism . Geopark . Geoheritage . Chaohu Lake
Introduction Geoheritage has attracted increasing attention since the beginning of the 1990s. An inventory of local geoheritage is essential for geoconservation and can be used to inform geotourism (Dowling 2011; Gray 2011; Hose 2012; Mikhailenko and Ruban 2019a, 2019b, 2019c; Mikhailenko et al. 2017; Neches 2016; Plyusnina et al. 2016; Prosser 2013; Reynard and Brilha 2018; Reynard and Giusti 2018; Reynard et al. 2018; Ruban 2017; Sallam et al. 2018; Scriven 2019; Štrba 2019; Štrba et al. 2016, 2018; Suzuki and Takagi 2018; Thomas 2016; Wimbledon and Smith-Meyer 2012). Most previous studies of geoheritage have concentrated on Europe and East Asia; however, China is extremely rich in geoheritage and possesses the largest number of geoparks of any country (Chen 2016; Li et al. 2018; Wang et al. 2015a;
* Weilun Kong [email protected]; [email protected] 1
2
Anhui Technical College of Industry and Economy, 1 Liangyuan Road, Hefei 230051, China Geological Survey of Anhui Province, 19 Ningguo Road, Hefei 230001, China
Zhao et al. 2015). During the period 2000–2019, a total of 39 Global Geoparks, 218 National Geoparks, and 343 Provincial Geoparks were established in China (see online at http://cn. globalgeopark.org/). In the past decade, the concepts of urban geoheritage and urban geotourism have gained importance among scientists and practitioners (AbdelMaksoud et al. 2018; Borghi et al. 2014; Chan and Godsey 2016; Del Lama et al. 2015; Gorska-Zabielska and Zabielski 2017; Ha
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