Environmental and Community Stability of a Mountain Destination: An Analysis of Residents’ Perception

Abstract

This study aims to explore the use of the social-ecological system (SES) in tourism of a mountain area. Authors examined residents' perceptions of tourism impacts on four SES aspects: ecosystems, local knowledge, people and technology and property rights institutions. The aim is to find area that will be a "common ground" for community and area that can be a source of conflict and will require additional work to solve the differences. Second objective was to examine residents' perception towards future local development tourism policies (winter tourism, seasonality and environment and culture) and how those policies can affect natural, socio-economic and cultural aspects of mountain area. Residents' perceptions of sustainable tourism development potential, perceived tourism impacts, analysis of community attachment and employment sector of stakeholder were involved in this study. The authors applied the Q-methodology, as one SES-allied approach, in a small mountain community of Kopaonik, the Republic of Serbia. The results revealed that residents' agreement/disagreement is connected with two aspects: ecosystem and property rights and that ecosystem can be significantly influenced by all three development policies. Findings suggest that development of future natural conservation plans and new cultural attractions can have positive effects on all parts of social-ecological system. Some practical implications of those findings for tourism planning and development are also discussed.

Waste Management in Green and Smart Cities: A Case Study of Russia

“…As we mentioned in the theoretical section, the role of active and smart citizens in the development of green and smart cities is very important (Demirović, Radovanović, Petrović, Cimbaljević, Vuksanović, Vuković, Larionova, etc. (2018), Wang, Kintrea (2019)) [21][22][23]. Furthermore, their influence on urban development is stronger in the case of the agglomeration process, especially in small provincial urban centers (Vuković, Larionova, Platonov, and Vuković (2017)) [22].…”

Comparing the functional recognition of aesthetics, hydrology, and quality in urban stream restoration through the framework of environmental perception

“…The SES framework provides a prism to understand the relations between water systems and various human perceptions as a feedback loop. One of the key factors in SES is rooted in how civic perceptions in local communities react to environmental conditions (Chang et al, ; Demirović et al, ). Within the SES framework, interactions among stakeholders and feedback‐sharing between natural systems and human activities can address a holistic viewpoint regarding environmental issues such as river restoration (Cohen, Evans, & Mills, ).…”

Changes in Traditional Activities of Industrial Area toward Sustainable Tourism Development

“…Studies on the residents' attitudes regarding directions of development of the local community are treated as interdisciplinary studies in the field of environmental sociology (natural and social), and this field of sociology was especially developed over the last three decades [27][28][29][30][31][32]. Research on the residents' attitudes toward tourism development, including their willingness to participate in entrepreneurial activities in the tourism sector, was previously conducted and presented in numerous studies [33][34][35][36][37]. The attitudes of the local community are typically strongly associated with deeply rooted values, as well as with personalities which are not so prone to changes [38][39][40][41][42].…”