Positive as well as negative impacts are identified, and relationships between and within tourism and the destination are examined in the context of local economic needs and Government policy. Trends in the water quality data examined in the case study point towards an exacerbation of poor bacteriological water quality by tourism. Infrastructural pressures increase in the high tourist season, when rainfall is low, and groundwater quality is affected by the lack of suitable sanitation structures and stressed by large numbers of overnight visitors. Marine water quality also has evidence of significant human faecal pollution although point sources are not readily identified. Water supply currently exceeds demand in the high tourist season, although as with water quality, it is difficult to determine the extent to which these are conditions regularly experienced in Kovalam regardless of tourism.
Vegetation cover is affected by building facilities for and path damage.
Areas where the host population live, distant from touristed areas, have more species and higher numbers of individual plants overall. The significance of this is limited except as an overall indicator into the health of the physical environment. Solid waste is a far greater problem, and there are strong spatial links between areas with high tourist facility densities, presence of organic and inorganic waste and problems associated with waste management. Positive impacts of tourism on the physical environment are identified in the host population's awareness of damage to their environment, recognition of pertinent problems and the need to deal with them. Management of the physical environment in the context of tourism in Kovalam presents interesting issues, at local to international levels.