Introduction
Using GIS is becoming increasingly popular in park and recreation planning and management. GIS allows recreation managers to make more informed and scientific decisions about creating trails, drawing park boundaries, and managing for recreation uses. GIS is an important tool for park and recreation management and will only become more valuable in the future.Baron, J.S., D.M. Theobald, and D.B. Fagre. 2000. Management of land use conflicts in the United States Rocky Mountains. Mountain Research and Development. 20(1):24-7.
National parks in the Rocky Mountains are attracting a large amount of development. Gateway service communities are expanding and as the landscape continues to develop it is increasingly necessary for the private land to be managed outside of the parks. Public land use managers have no authority to manage the private land outside of the parks but systems are being developed to inform local land use decision making of the possible ecological impacts associated with developing lands around national parks. The System of Conservation Planning (SCoP), is one such effort, whose goal is to support community planning by providing information on development through an interactive GIS map program. The GIS maps include layers with wildlife habitat, vegetation, conservation sites, and development patterns and allow people to see how individual land changes accumulate in a region. The SCoP effort has been used to model the impacts of ski resort expansion plans on wildlife habitat. This article demonstrates how GIS is used as a visual tool to encourage smart private land use decisions.
Colville, D. and J. Bridgland. "GIS evaluation of special preservation zones in a national park." Science and the Management of Protected Areas. Eds. J.H.M. Willison, S. Bondrup-Nielsen, C. Drysdale, T.B. Herman, N.W.P. Munro, and T.L. Pollock. Elsevier Science Publishers: New York, 1992. 461-65.
GIS was used in Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Canada to determine if areas that were designated Special Preservation Areas for species diversity were actually including the areas in the park with the highest biodiversity. Significant natural features were identified and mapped including rare, threatened or endangered species, and species with biogeographic importance. Maps were created using GIS that included 91 significant natural features. The analysis determines that a third of the species were not protected within Special Preservation Areas, which indicates a need for re-zoning the Special Preservation Areas.
Fox, J., P. Yonzon, and N. Podger. 1996. Mapping conflicts between biodiversity and human needs in Langtang National Park, Nepal. Conservation Biology. 10(2): 562-69.
This study mapped areas of conflict between red panda habitat and grazing pasture for the locals who live in and near the Langtang National Park in the high Himalaya region of Nepal. Livestock is the major economic activity of the local residents who provide milk to make cheese for tourists in Kathmandu. Grazing land patterns were determined from interviews with local herders and mapped in an 81 km2 study site using GPS. GIS was used to analyze the overlap of the grazing area with red panda habitat, which had been determined in a previous study. The authors determined that 62% of the red pandas' habitat area in the study site was heavily grazed. They suggested that a possible solution would be to restrict the number of cattle that were allowed in the Park and to increase cheese prices for tourists so that the locals maintained the same income. This study also highlighted the need to consider many needs when planning land-use activities in park areas and the usefulness of GIS to help park managers manage for farmers� land-use practices.
Fry, G.L. and S. Norris. "The use of GIS in national park management in Norway: practical and theoretical issues." Science and the Management of Protected Areas. Eds. J.H.M. Willison, S. Bondrup-Nielsen, C. Drysdale, T.B. Herman, N.W.P. Munro, and T.L. Pollock. Elsevier Science Publishers: New York, 1992. 453-60.
This chapter discusses the utility of GIS in park management decisions in Norway. Many national parks in Norway were not defined in a systematic way, which makes the justification of protecting the park and the management of the park difficult. Only 4% of Norway was protected in parks at the time of publication and the park system was under review in order to expand the parks' habitat coverage. This chapter determines that GIS will be extremely useful in this process, due to its uses in spatial analysis and simulation modeling. Spatial Analysis is important for the parks in order to be able to combine data on ecology, economics, and sociology and to detect changes in landscape and vegetation. Linking simulation models with GIS is useful because it allows managers to perform model experiments. This chapter also discusses the implications of GIS for making management decisions that have more political support and the complications that are involved with using GIS.
Gimblett, R., B. Durnota, and B. Itami. 1996. Spatially-explicit autonomous agents for modeling recreation use in complex wilderness landscapes. Complexity International. 3.
The purpose of this study was to develop a framework for a new form of intelligent decision support and simulation system (IDSS) to simulate recreation conflicts in wilderness settings. This study used data from recreation user groups in the red rock country of Arizona. The study used a multi-agent framework including GIS to represent the real world; an international agent programming language to assess Belief/Desire/Intention (BDI) agents; and a simulation system with complex adaptive systems framework. Sage Professional, an advanced GIS program, was used to build a spatial database on red rock country from aerial photos and topographic data. The success of the multi-agent framework for combining GIS data, simulation technology and cognitive reasoning capabilities provides an advanced method for assessing recreation conflict and demonstrates the utility of this framework to resource managers in decision making about recreation conflicts in wilderness settings.
Keisler, J.M. and R.C. Sundell. 1997. Combining multi-attribute utility and geographic information for boundary decisions: an application to park planning. Journal of Geographic Information and Decision Analysis. 1(2):101-18.
This study uses multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT) combined with GIS to determine the best location of park boundaries. MAUT is used in conjunction with GIS in a geographic multi-attribute utility system (GMAUS) in order to evaluate many different considerations in drawing park boundaries. The MAUT system integrates the previous two approaches of Additive Suitability Indices and Site Evaluation. The GMAUS system analyzes the importance of different values for the park including: social/cultural values, conservation values, and consumptive values (including visual, economic, and recreation values) in order to determine the best location for the park boundaries. This system allows park managers to make better informed and supported decisions when creating park boundaries.
Kremen, C., V. Razafimahatratra, R.P. Guillery, J. Rakotomalala, A. Weiss, and J.S. Ratsisompatrarivo. 1999. Designing the Masoala National Park in Madagascar based on biological and socioeconomic data. Conservation Biology. 13(5): 1055-68.
This paper evaluated biological and socioeconomic data using GIS in order to create the boundaries of a new national park on the Masoala Peninsula in northeastern Madagascar. The Masoala Peninsula is one of the largest remaining forested blocks in Madagascar but also supports a high concentration of villages. In order to plan the park boundaries the authors utilized design criteria for ecological sustainability and socioeconomic sustainability. Data layers were integrated in Arc/Info (version 7) to determine which areas met the design criteria for the park including: forest cover data from satellite image analysis; and settlements, villages, territories, access, and biodiversity inventories collected from in-field Global Positioning System (GPS) data. The analysis revealed that there was large habitat diversity in the forested areas, which contained many species endemic to the area. The authors decided to draw the park boundary around most of the forested area of the peninsula to protect the biodiversity in the area. Instead of protecting periphery areas of forest by including them into the park boundaries, the authors decided that community based economic incentives should be employed instead of legal mechanisms to allow for the continued resource management and community support for the park.
McNeil, B.E., J.D. Jasper, D.A. Luchsinger, and M.V. Rainsmier. 2002. Implementation and application of GIS at Timpanogos Cave National Monument, Utah. Journal of Cave and Karst Studies. 64(1):34-7.
This article discusses the usefulness of GIS in the natural resource management and interpretation of cave systems. GIS is used by the management of Timpanogos Cave National Monument in Utah, which protects the Timpanogos cave system composed of three caverns in a cliff band above a canyon floor. The applications of GIS were made possible due to the development of a high resolution (2 meter) Digital Terrain Model (DTM) of the cave system and its overlying topography. The DTM serves as the base layer for GIS analysis of the cave. GIS is used to determine a rockfall hazard model, which is extremely important because the cave has unstable limestone and steep topography. The model is used to make management decisions regarding hazard areas. The development of the DTM has also made it possible to provide a virtual online field trip of the cave system. This allows a larger audience to see the cave since it is a challenging hike on steep terrain to reach the cave access. The hiking trail is also frequently closed due to ice, snow, and rockfall hazard.
Queen, L.P., J.C. Vlaming, G.J. Arthaud, and D.W. Lime. 1997. Modeling impacts of forest roads on recreation opportunities. North Journal of Applied Forestry. 14(4):194-201.
In this study, the authors developed a Road Impact Model (RIM) in order to examine the relationship between roads and recreation experience. Existing road networks were mapped to quantify current recreation opportunities and alternative scenarios of road networks were mapped in order to examine the impact on the number of recreation opportunities. The model quantifies road impacts to four characteristics of recreation opportunities that include: experiential recreation opportunities, physical recreation opportunities, transportation network opportunities, and aesthetic opportunities. Road networks were mapped with GIS along with recreation facilities and land cover in order to determine the impacts on recreation opportunities. The RIM model allows land managers to determine the impacts of adding roads or changing road networks on the recreation opportunities in public forest areas. The RIM model was applied to a study area in the Chippewa National Forest in Minnesota.
Rogan, L.M. "Combining the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to assess current and future recreation conditions in Oregon's Coast Range." M.S. diss., Oregon State University, 2000.
The author used GIS to map spatial distributions of ROS classes in the Oregon Coast Range and to determine how projected landscape changes might affect recreation in the future. ROS is a tool used to determine suitable recreation habitat based on a variety of activities, settings, and experiences. He then used GIS to simulate changes in road networks and to determine the change in the ROS. The author found the most ROS classes in the Coast Range were found in modified landscapes and the least were in primitive areas. The same was true for future predictions of recreation in the Coast Range. This study demonstrated the ability to use GIS as a tool in recreation planning and as a predictive model.
Schumacher, J.V., R.L. Redmond, M.M. Hart, and M.E. Jensen. 2000. Mapping patterns of human use and potential resource conflicts on public lands. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment. 64:127-37.
This paper presents a mapping approach based on GIS which incorporates a model of intensity of human use and the mapping of threatened and endangered species in order to analyze human use of public lands. This approach was implemented in Lolo National Forest in western Montana. Intensity of human use was determined by analyzing census data, land ownership, transportation density, and land cover from satellite imagery and was then analyzed using GIS along with mapped data on endangered species and concentrations of bull trout. Maps showing the intersection of human use intensity and species richness were generated to determine likely areas for conflicts that will allow public land managers to identify important areas of concern.
Wing, M. and B. Shelby. 1999. Using GIS to integrate information on forest recreation. Journal of Forestry. 97(1):12-16.
This study maps recreational use levels in McDonald-Dunn Research Forest, north of Corvallis, Oregon, using GIS in order to generate maps that can be used to improve management decisions. The McDonald Dunn Research Forest is heavily used by three main user groups (recreation, research, and forest management) that are often in conflict. Data was collected from a stratified sampling of visitors at the five major access points to the forest. Visitors were asked to trace their routes on a map and fill out a questionnaire. Results were entered onto GIS layers and a map with dynamic segmentation, which can show movement on a network, was generated in order to determine different user groups and the heaviest areas of use. Mapped areas of heaviest use indicate areas that managers should pay extra attention to in management decisions.
Xiang, W. 1996. A GIS based method for trail alignment planning. Landscape and Urban Planning. 35:11-23.
This paper designs a method for planning the alignment of hiking trails using GIS and then uses it in a case study of Crowders Mountain State Park in North Carolina. Planning trails is generally a labor intensive process that includes a survey of a park's physical, ecological, and land-use conditions and can be improved by using GIS. A system for trail alignment planning was developed that connects a starting point with a destination by connecting adjacent cells with the most favorable trail conditions. Cells are coded with physical, ecological, and land use conditions that have been calculate for each cell based on a land-suitability score, visibility rating, and cost indices. Trail alignment planning with this GIS method was implemented at the Crowders Mountain State Park to connect the park's visitor center with three locations in the park. Land use data was derived from aerial photographs and converted to raster grid cells.
About Me
Emily Straus
E-mail: strause@geo.oregonstate.edu
Department of Geosciences
Oregon State University