Daniel Scott

Professor, Associate Chair, Graduate Studies and Director, Climate Change Programs (Master of Climate Change and Graduate Diploma in Climate Risk Management)

EV1-328, ext. 45497
dj2scott@uwaterloo.ca
 

Dr. Daniel Scott is a Professor and Research Chair in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo. He is also an International Research Fellow at the School of Hospitality and Tourism at the University of Surrey (UK). Daniel has worked extensively on sustainable tourism for 25 years, with a focus on the transition to a low carbon tourism economy and adaptation to the complex impacts of a changing climate. He has advised and led projects for a wide range of government agencies and tourism organizations around the world, including the United Nations World Tourism Organization, United Nations Environment Programme, World Bank, European Tourism Commission, World Travel and Tourism Council, International Olympic Committee, OECD, the Caribbean Tourism Organization. He has also been a contributor to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Assessments and their 1.5°C special report. In 2021, he was ranked in the world top 250 climate scientists by Reuters.  His tourism research publications have been downloaded over a half million times and have been featured in many leading media outlets, including The Economist, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, BBC, Time, Scientific American, and National Geographic.

Key Areas of Graduate Supervision
Climate change and tourism/recreation, sustainable tourism, climate change impacts and adaptation, climate change and protected areas management.

Recent Courses Taught

GEMCC620: Climate and Society
GEOG208: Human Dimensions of Climate Change
GEOG423/TOUR 601/LED-GEOG 671:Tourism Lecture Series

Research Interests
My research interests are in the interface of global change (environmental, demographic, economic) and sustainable tourism.  A particular focus has been on two-way interactions of climate change and tourism, understanding the implications of a changing climate and climate sensitive environmental systems for tourism at the tourist, operator, destination and tourism region scales, as well as the contribution the global tourism sector makes to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions and land use change.  This research also examines government and business climate change mitigation and adaptation policy and planning, as well as consumer responses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while on holiday.  Other research interests include the use of forecasts and scenarios in tourism planning and climate change and protected areas management.

Recent Publications:

  • Knowles, N., Scott, D., Steiger, R. (2023) Sustainability of Snowmaking as Climate Change (mal)Adaptation: Current and Future Water-Energy-Emissions Associated with the Canadian Ski Industry. Current Issues in Tourism. doi: 10.1080/13683500.2023.2214358
  • Scott, D., Knowles, N., Steiger, R. (2022) Is Snowmaking Climate Change Maladaptation? Journal of Sustainable Tourism. doi: 10.1080/09669582.2022.2137729
  • Sun, Y.Y., Gössling, S., Hem,.L., Iversen, N., Okleviv, O., Scott, D., Walnam, H. (2022) Can Norway become a net-zero economy under scenarios of tourism growth? Journal of Cleaner Production. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.132414
  • Scott, D., Gössling, S. (2022) A review of research into tourism and climate change - Launching the annals of tourism research curated collection on tourism and climate change. Annals of Tourism Research. doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2022.103409
  • Scott, D., Knowles, N., Ma, S., Rutty, M., Steiger, R. (2021) Climate Change and the Future of the Olympic Winter Games: Athlete and Coach Perspectives. Current Issues in Tourism. doi:10.1080/13683500.2021.2023480
  • Scott, D., Gössling, S. (2021) From Djerba to Glasgow: Have Declarations on Tourism and Climate Change Brought Us Any Closer to Meaningful Climate Action? Journal of Sustainable Tourism. doi: 10.1080/09669582.2021.2009488
  • Scott, D., Gössling, S. (2021) Destination net-zero: What does the International Energy Agency roadmap mean for tourism? Journal of Sustainable Tourism. doi:10.1080/09669582.2021.1962890
  • Scott, D. (2021) Sustainable Tourism and the Grand Challenge of Climate Change.  Sustainability.13(4), doi:10.3390/su13041966
  • Gössling, S., Scott, D., Hall, C.M. (2020) Pandemics, Tourism and Global Change: A Rapid Assessment of COVID-19. Journal of Sustainable Tourism. DOI: 10.1080/09669582.2020.1758708
  • Matthews, L., Scott, D., Andrey, J. (2019) Development of a data-driven weather index for beach tourism. International Journal of Biometeorology. DOI:10.1007/s00484-019-01799-7
  • Scott, D., Hall, C.M., Gössling, S. (2019) Global Tourism Vulnerability to Climate Change. Annals of Tourism Research, 77, 49-61. DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2019.05.007