Low carbon footprint routes for bird watching
Journal
Sustainability (Switzerland)
Journal Volume
7
Journal Issue
3
Pages
3290-3310
Date Issued
2015
Author(s)
Abstract
Bird watching is one of many recreational activities popular in ecotourism. Its popularity, therefore, prompts the need for studies on energy conservation. One such environmentally friendly approach toward minimizing bird watching's ecological impact is ensuring a reduced carbon footprint by using an economic travel itinerary comprising a series of connected routes between tourist attractions that minimizes transit time. This study used a travel-route planning approach using geographic information systems to detect the shortest path, thereby solving the problems associated with time-consuming transport. Based on the results of road network analyses, optimal travel-route planning can be determined. These methods include simulated annealing (SA) and genetic algorithms (GA). We applied two algorithms in our simulation research to detect which one is an appropriate algorithm for running carbon-routing algorithms at the regional scale. SA, which is superior to GA, is considered an excellent approach to search for the optimal path to reduce carbon dioxide and high gasoline fees, thereby controlling travel time by using the shortest travel routes. © 2015 by the authors.
Subjects
Genetic algorithms; Simulated annealing; Taiwan; Taoyuan
Other Subjects
bird; carbon footprint; ecological impact; ecotourism; energy conservation; genetic algorithm; GIS; network analysis; recreational activity; simulated annealing; tourist attraction; travel time; Aves
Type
journal article