Environmental Impacts of Tourism in Lulusar-Dudipatsar National Park: A Step towards Ecotourism

Abstract

Lulusar Dudipath is an attractive place to the tourists. During the summer season a large population of tourists come to the park. Nevertheless, during the largest part of the year the area is under the snow. It causes degradation of natural resources because of high human activities in the region and this study was meant to determine the effects of the environment in the Lulusar Dudipath national park LDNP and assessing the key effects to the value of eco-tourism in the LDNP. To fulfill the objective of the research, physical and chemical properties of water and soil were evaluated and analysis of the heavy metals was carried out where zinc, manganese, lead, chromium and cadmium were assessed as to water quality. Comparative studies on peak and off-peak season showed that there was no major difference in heavy metal concentration and they were all within the acceptable range. The mean water pH was 6.93 at the peak season and 7.1 after the peak season whereas the average soil pH was 8.01 and 7.8 respectively. Analysis of solid waste revealed that the plastics were the most common fraction with 45 percent in the high season and 50 percent later. The positive features of tourism are the economic benefits of the local population, the possibility of employment is growing, and the negative features of tourism are physical pollution of the area due to the growing number of traffic and constructions.