Elsevier

Resources Policy

Volume 53, September 2017, Pages 103-108
Resources Policy

Geodiversity as a precious national resource: A note on the role of geoparks

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2017.06.007Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Geodiversity – number of types of geological phenomena on a given area.

  • Geodiversity is a nationally-important geological resource.

  • Geoparks are important for this resource exploitation.

  • True importance of geoparks for geodiversity exploitation in countries is limited.

  • National policy should be developed to exploit geodiversity resource efficiently.

Abstract

Geodiversity can be defined as either number of geological heritage types or qualitative characteristics of the unique geological environment. Geodiversity can be used for the purposes of science, education, and tourism, and, thus, this is a precious resource requiring efficient exploitation for production of socio-economic benefits. Geoparks are ideal instruments of the geodiversity resource exploitation. Their efficacy on the international scale is clear, but their role in countries is yet to be discussed. The assessment of the dominant geological heritage types in all geoparks (members of the UNESCO Global Geoparks) of seven countries with their big number (China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom) suggest that about a half of the known types are represented in the geoparks of each of these countries. However, the exploitation of the geodiversity resource on the national level is not full because some types are missed and those available differ by the relative importance. It appears that the UNESCO Global Geopark network does not match the national interests ideally (partly because the UNESCO initiative is not aimed at the national level by definition). It is recommended that countries should develop their own policy of efficient geodiversity resource exploitation via geopark creation. As much geological heritage types as possible should be represented in geoparks, and the very ideas of geodiversity and geoparks should be promoted actively among the broad public and the policy-makers.

Introduction

From the economic point of view, the geological environment is considered traditionally as a "container" of industrial and energy resources, such as iron ore, coal, and oil. However, it has become clear in two past decades that there is yet the other precious resource linked to this environment, namely the geological heritage. The latter is the entity of unique (very rare or very typical) geological features that are valuable for the society and require conservation (cf. Prosser et al., 2006; Henriques et al., 2011; Wimbledon and Smith-Meyer, 2012; Prosser, 2013; Bruno et al., 2014). Geological heritage has been discussed already in the terms of the resources policy, particularly, by Cairncross (2011), Ruban (2012), Wimbledon and Smith-Meyer (2012), and Tiess and Ruban (2013). The recent works of Jaeckel et al., 2016, Jaeckel et al., 2017 are also relevant to this discussion. Modern management of the geological environment is impossible without heritage value consideration.

The central concept in the modern theory of geological heritage is geodiversity. Different (even very contrasting) meanings of the latter have been proposed (Bradbury, 2014, Brilha, 2016, Brown et al., 2012, Crawford and Black, 2012, Erikstad, 2013, Gordon et al., 2012, Gray, 2013, Habibi and Ruban, 2017, Knight, 2011, Necheş, 2016, Nieto, 2001, Pereira et al., 2013, Plyusnina et al., 2016, Ruban, 2010, Ruban, 2011, Serrano and Ruiz-Flaño, 2007, Serrano and Ruiz-Flaño, 2009, Solarska et al., 2013, Stanley, 2001, Thomas, 2016, Zwolinski, 2004). Generally, geodiversity can be understood as either number of types of geological features on a given territory or quasi-philosophical category relevant to the people's admiration of the geological uniqueness, complexity, and beauty (but these two definitions are not mutually excluding). Anyway, geodiversity is an important and economically-valuable resource for the society. It can be used for scientific investigations, education, and tourism. All three bring evident socio-economic benefits, both direct and indirect. Combination of different geological features on the same territory permits more complex research programs, offer excellent opportunity for student field excursions, and attract geology amateurs. All these activities, especially geotourism, bring real economic benefits to the local communities.

Similarly to mining, benefits from the geodiversity can be obtained via its effective exploitation for the scientific, educational, and tourism purposes. The UNESCO Global Geopark network appears to be very suitable approach for such an exploitation. Geoparks are established to provide adequate conservation of unique geodiversity localities (Eder, 2008, Farsani et al., 2011, Farsani et al., 2012, Farsani et al., 2014, Henriques et al., 2012, Lazzari and Aloia, 2014, Ruban, 2016, Štrba et al., 2016). In fact, the very existence of a geopark stresses the importance of the area from the geodiversity point of view. Moreover, a geopark offers infrastructure for research, education, and tourism. Generally, the exploitation of the geodiversity resource is the most efficient in the form of geoparks. Presently, more than a hundred of geoparks are established in a few dozens of countries under the auspice of the UNESCO (Fig. 1). However, it should be remembered that the geological resource exploitation is important, first of all, to countries. The present paper is aimed at examination of the role, which the global geoparks play in the representation of geodiversity on the national scale. The basic conceptual idea is as follows: if all geoparks serve the exploitation of the geodiversity resource, the geoparks of any given country should represent the national geodiversity fully in order to make this resource more precious to the society.

Section snippets

Material and method

The current knowledge of the UNESCO global geoparks is summarized on the official web-page of this network (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/environment/earth-sciences/unesco-global-geoparks/list-of-unesco-global-geoparks/). Many countries boast by the one or two geoparks, which cannot represent their national geodiversity fully. However, there are several countries with a bigger (> 5) number of geoparks. These are China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and United Kingdom (

Results

The geoparks of China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom differ significantly (Table 2). Some represent the only dominant type, and some represent several dominant types. Moreover, the combination of the types within the geoparks and within the countries are also different. However, the geodiversity serves as a precious resource in all cases, which can be demonstrated with two examples, namely the Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark in China and the Cabo de Gata-Níjar

Policy implications

If geodiversity is a precious resource, its management (including exploitation via geopark creation) requires well-justified policy-making. The international policy is clear, and it is reflected in the official documents and plans of the UNESCO Global Geopark network. However, development of the national policy is also necessary because countries can receive significant direct and indirect socio-economic benefits from the geodiversity resource exploitation (especially from the rising activities

Conclusion

The present study allows making four general conclusions:

  • 1)

    the geoparks in the countries with their big number contribute to the exploitation of the national geodiversity resource via research, education, and tourism activities;

  • 2)

    the exploitation of this resource is incomplete because of the incomplete representation of the geological heritage types in the geoparks of these countries;

  • 3)

    the special policy aimed at efficient exploitation of the geodiversity resource in the form of geoparks should be

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully thanks the journal editor and the anonymous reviewer for their support and helpful recommendations, as well as W. Riegraf (Germany) for his help with literature. This study was funded by the grant of the Russian Science Foundation Project 17-17-01229 (Head Yu.A. Fedorov) and the Permanent Leading Researchers Project 5.5791.2017/6.7 (Head Yu.A. Fedorov).

References (47)

  • C.D. Prosser

    Our rich and varied geoconservation portfolio: the foundation for the future

    Proc. Geol. Assoc.

    (2013)
  • D.A. Ruban

    Quantification of geodiversity and its loss

    Proc. Geol. Assoc.

    (2010)
  • D.A. Ruban

    How diverse should be geodiversity? Reply to Knight "Evaluating geological heritage"

    Proc. Geol. Assoc.

    (2011)
  • D.A. Ruban

    Geoconservation versus legislation and resources policy: new achievements, new questions - comment on Cairncross (Resources Policy, 2011) The National heritage resource Act (1999): can legislation protect South Africa's rare geoheritage resources?

    Resour. Policy

    (2012)
  • D.A. Ruban

    Representation of geologic time in the global geopark network: a web-page study

    Tour. Manag. Perspect.

    (2016)
  • A. Solarska et al.

    Geodiversity of the loess regions in Poland: inventory, geoconservation issues, and geotourism potential

    Quat. Int.

    (2013)
  • G. Tiess et al.

    Geological heritage and mining legislation: a brief conceptual assessment of the principal legal acts of selected EU countries

    Proc. Geol. Assoc.

    (2013)
  • L. Wang et al.

    Geodiversity, geoconservation and geotourism in Hong Kong Global Geopark of China

    Proc. Geol. Assoc.

    (2015)
  • J. Brilha

    Inventory and quantitative assessment of geosites and geodiversity sites: a review

    Geoheritage

    (2016)
  • E.J. Brown et al.

    Geodiversity, conservation and climate change: key principles for adaptation

    Scott. Geogr. J.

    (2012)
  • K.R. Crawford et al.

    Visitor understanding of the geodiversity and the geoconservation value of the Giant's Causeway World Heritage Site, Northern Ireland

    Geoheritage

    (2012)
  • A. Di Lisio et al.

    Geotourism and economy in Irpinia (Campania, Italy)

    Rend. Online Soc. Geol. Ital.

    (2016)
  • W. Eder

    Geoparks - promotion of earth sciences through geoheritage conservation, education and tourism

    J. Geol. Soc. India

    (2008)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text