This book offers a comprehensive understanding of China’s tourism development from 1992 onwards, focusing on the social-cultural change that accompanied the rise of tourism. It examines both the economic benefits and sociocultural impacts of tourism and argues that tourism sustainability depends on a delicate balance between economic and social-cultural interests which could manifest differently among the stakeholders of various interests. It also explores, through both theoretical and empirical analysis, how travel connects people and places through the processes of tourist imagination and consumption. The volume portrays how contemporary discourses fuse with individual histories to formulate the ways in which tourists understand China. It will be a useful resource for students and scholars in human geography, tourism management, leisure and recreation, and social sciences.

This book presents a selected literature review and case studies for both physical and virtual water transfer. It offers an overview to showcase the interprovincial physical and virtual water transfer within China, and then demonstrates the effects of both approaches in dealing with regional water scarcity; the three cases presented in the Yangtze River Basin demonstrate the role of physical water transfer in improving water quality and restoring water ecosystems; while a Shanghai case highlights the impact of Shanghai's virtual water import on water quantity and quality stress to other regions. This book promotes systematic approaches combining both virtual and physical water transfer solutions to deal with water quantity and quality issues. The book is intended for senior undergraduates, graduate students, lecturers and researchers in water management.

This book mainly provides the current status of water pollution faced by China under rapid changing environment and the actions that have been taken for prevention and treatment of water pollution. It points out that the water pollution situation is severe. Facing water pollution, China's experiences include several aspects on source control and pollution interception, internal nutrient removal of sediment, ecological restoration, and water transfer policy. There exists both the opportunity and challenge for the prevention and control of water pollution in China. The book contains numerous charts and diagrams which further illustrating China's paths to clean water.

Scholars of many persuasions recognize the experiential features of geography, which have been largely overlooked in tourism researches. Partially in response to this omission, this book presents a phenomenological exploration of tourist travel experience. By describing the experiences of two separate groups of Canadian tourists travelling to and inside China, the study examines the educational dimension of tourism. Phenomenology has to do with the origin of our experiences, such as anxiety, behaviour, religion, place and topophilia, which we cannot understand through observation and measurement -- we must first live through them to grasp these experiences as they really are. Therefore, in decipering the meanings of tourism texts, phenomenology can be an effective method as it allows us to contact phenomena while actually experiencing them.