ABSTRACT
This chapter contemplates two key perspectives on the relationship between sport and the natural environment. First, sport’s impact on the natural environment has a longer intellectual history and place in the sport industry as a management issue. The second perspective, how the natural environment impacts sport, has a much more recent intellectual history, and is the focus for this chapter. Analysis is presented of the 19 academic research manuscripts published to date whose focus is impacts of nature on sport. In doing so, the author integrates bodies of literature ranging from environmental science and environmental change, to business and sport management. Attention is consequently focused on several key concepts (impacts, vulnerability, risk, resilience, adaptation, and mitigation). The author argues that it is important for sport managers, policymakers, and scholars to be aware of these inter-linked concepts in order to understand the complexity of sport’s relationship with nature and the contemporary challenges posed by environmental impacts on sport, but also the potential for better responses to these challenges. Despite the quality of existing research, limitations such as the small range of geographic settings, sports, and levels of analysis serve as the basis for the opportunities for future research identified in the conclusion.
