Theoretical and Methodological Foundations of Multi-Scale Study and Assessment of the Tourist and Recreational Natural Potential of Rivers
Authors:   Belarusian State University, Shevtsova N. S. 
Published: May 2022

The article presents the results of the development of a universal scientific and methodological complex for the study and assessment of the natural tourist and recreational potential of rivers at a multi-scale level (river section – percentage of river sections in the region - percentage of river sections in the country). A fundamentally new element of its theoretical and methodological support is a conceptual model of a comprehensive tourist and recreational assessment of the natural potential of rivers, based on a combination of geosystem, geospatial paradigm and theory of territorial recreational systems, principles of ecological and technical safety, physiological and climatic comfort and landscape and aesthetic attractiveness. The integral structural elements of the conceptual model of the complex tourist and recreational assessment of the natural potential of rivers are: the methodology of the complex tourist and recreational assessment of the natural potential of rivers, the functional hierarchy of river sections according to the profile types of their tourist and recreational use, functional tourist and recreational zoning of rivers and zoning of the territory according to the suitability of natural potential and the structure of factors limiting its use. The theoretical and methodological basis for the practical part of the work was the methodology of a comprehensive tourist and recreational assessment of the natural potential of rivers, which is based on a system of differentiated target indicators developed on the basis of the structure of tourist and recreational use of rivers using the method of score assessment. The results of its approbation on the basis of quantitative results of the assessment of the natural potential of river sections made it possible to identify the profiling types of tourists and recreational use and their limiting factors in the context of sites and identify geographical features of the natural potential of rivers for aquatic recreation and tourism at a multi-scale level. The specificity of the complex nature of the assessment methodology in the context of tourist and recreational use is associated with the result of the integration of medico-biological, technological, psychological and aesthetic types of assessment, the multimedia effect of the interaction of which, when using GIS-technologies, allowed us to determine not only the structure, but also the geography of the profiling types, types of tourist and recreational use of sites and their limiting factors on micro-, macro- and megalevel, which provided both a multi-scale and geographical interpretation of the tourist and recreational research of the natural potential of river sections. Based on the results of a comprehensive assessment, a typology of river sections has been developed according to the suitability of their natural potential for profiling types of tourist and recreational use, based on a combination of criteria for their number and specialization of the spectrum of species that are only temporarily possible for implementation, which structurally consists of 4 types (unusable, monofunctional, limited-multifunctional (2-3 types), multifunctional (4 or more types)) and 24 subtypes in their context. On the basis of this methodology, a qualitative differentiation of the suitability of the natural tourist and recreational potential of 372 sections of 167 rivers and their geographical analysis was carried out, which made it possible to develop a GIS-atlas on the tourist and recreational use of the natural potential of the rivers of Belarus, to identify geographical patterns and features of the natural potential of rivers for tourist and recreational use in a multi-scale format and to create a scientific and practical basis for developing a strategy for the development of aquatic recreation and tourism on the rivers of Belarus.