An Interpretive Study of Yosemite National Park Visitors’ Perspectives Toward Alternative Transportation in Yosemite Valley

The National Park Service (NPS) is increasingly focusing on alternative transportation systems in national parks to address environmental and social problems arising from a historical reliance on personal automobiles as the primary means of visitor access. Despite the potential advantages, alternative transportation may require a reorientation in the way that Americans have experienced national parks since the advent of auto-tourism in the early twentieth century. Little research exists, however, on visitor perspectives towards alternative transportation or the rationale underlying their perspectives. It remains unclear how transportation systems affect visitors’ experiences of the park landscape or the factors influencing their travel behavior in the parks. This report presents an interpretive study of visitor perspectives toward transportation management in the Yosemite Valley area of Yosemite National Park, California. Qualitative analysis of 160 semi-structured interviews identified individual psychological factors as well as situational influences that affect visitors’ behavior and perspectives. Individual psychological factors include perceived freedom, environmental values and beliefs, prior experience with Yosemite National Park and other national parks, prior experience with alternative transportation in national parks, and sensitivity to subjective perceptions of crowding. Situational factors included convenience, access, and flexibility of travel modes, as well as type of visit, type of group, and park use level. Interpretive communication designed to encourage voluntary visitor use of alternative transportation should focus on these psychological and situational factors. Although challenges remain, the results of this study suggest approaches for shaping the way Americans visit and experience their national parks to encourage environmental sustainability.     

Choosing Indicators of Natural Resource Condition: A Case Study in Arches National Park, Utah, USA

/ Heavy visitor use in many areas of the world have necessitated development of ways to assess visitation impacts. Arches National Park recently completed a Visitor Experience and Resource Protection (VERP) plan. Integral to this plan was developing a method to identify biological indicators that would both measure visitor impacts and response to management actions. The process used in Arches for indicator selection is outlined here as a model applicableto many areas facing similar challenges. The steps were: (1) Vegetation types most used by visitors were identified. Impacted and unimpacted areas in these types were sampled, comparing vegetation and soil factors. (2) Variables found to differ significantly between compared sites were used as potential indicators. (3) Site-specific criteria for indicators were developed, and potential indicators evaluated using these criteria. (4) Chosen indicators were further researched for ecological relevancy. (5) Final indicators were chosen, field tested, and monitoring sites designated. In Arches, indicators were chosen for monitoring annually (soil crust index, soil compaction, number of used social trails and soil aggregate stability) and every five years (vegetation cover and frequency; ground cover; soil chemistry; and plant tissue chemistry).KEY WORDS: Biological indicators; Recreation impacts; Recreation management; Desert soils; Trampling     

Estimating the Economic Value of National Parks with Count Data Models Using On-Site,Secondary Data: The Case of the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

We estimate an individual travel cost model for Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve (GSD) in Colorado using on-site, secondary data. The purpose of the on-site survey was to help the National Park Service better understand the visitors of GSD; it was not intended for a travel cost model. Variables such as travel cost and income were estimated based on respondents’ Zip Codes. Following approaches found in the literature, a negative binomial model corrected for truncation and endogenous stratification fit the data the best. We estimate a recreational benefit of U.S. $89/visitor/year or U.S. $54/visitor/24-h recreational day (in 2002 U.S. $). Based on the approach presented here, there are other data sets for national parks, preserves, and battlefields where travel cost models could be estimated and used to support National Park Service management decisions.     

Establishing backcountry use quotas: An example from Mineral King,California

Increasing levels of visitor use and consequent resource damage have necessitated that backcountry use restrictions be established in the Mineral King area of Sequoia National Park, California. In this paper we review the steps taken in developing a trailhead quota system. The availability of acceptable campsites, based on a detailed inventory of site distribution and impact, was used to quantitatively derive use capacities for each camp area. Wilderness permit data on visitor dispersal patterns from the major trailheads, including length of stay at each camp area, were then used to translate the area capacities into daily trailhead quotas that would assure that these capacities were not surpassed. The general approach is applicable to any backcountry area, although large complex areas may require the use of available computer simulation models.     

A Model for Predicting Daily Peak Visitation and Implications for Recreation Management and Water Quality: Evidence from Two Rivers in Puerto Rico

Visitor use surveys and water quality data indicates that high visitor use levels of two rivers in Puerto Rico does not appear to adversely affect several water quality parameters. Optimum visitor use to maximize visitor defined satisfaction is a more constraining limit on visitor use than water quality. Our multiple regression analysis suggests that visitor use of about 150 visitors per day yields the highest level of visitor reported satisfaction, a level that does not appear to affect turbidity of the river. This high level of visitor use may be related to the gregarious nature of Puerto Ricans and their tolerance for crowding on this densely populated island. The daily peak visitation model indicates that regulating the number of parking spaces may be the most effective way to keep visitor use within the social carrying capacity.     

Title 16 united states code §55 and its implications for management of concession facilities in Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park is one of the nation's most scenic and ecologically/geologically important parks. Unfortunately, the park is subject to extensive development of concession facilities and associated high levels of visitor use. Those concerned with preservation of the park's resources have attempted to limit the types and extent of such facilities to reduce adverse impacts. Strictly speaking, resolution of the preservation versus use controversy must be based on whether the National Park Service is adhering to its legislative mandate to regulate development and use in the parks. The common interpretation of legislative mandates for national parks, including Yosemite, is that they call for a difficult balancing between the conflicting goals of preservation and use. Accordingly, although concession developments cause significant impacts, they usually have been interpreted to be within the legal discretion allowed the secretary of the interior. However, the usual interpretations of the meanings of legislative mandates for Yosemite National Park have not considered Title 16 United States Code §55, which is a very restrictive statute limiting concession facilities. Many of the limitations imposed on concession facilities by the plain language of the statute have been exceeded. If it can be shown that 16 United States Code §55 is a valid statute, the policy implications for park management in Yosemite National Park would be considerable — namely, that significant reductions in concession facilities could be required. This article examines whether the statute can reasonably be thought to be valid and encourages others to conduct further examination of this question.     

Carrying capacity as "Informed Judgment": the values of science and the science of values

Contemporary park and wilderness carrying capacity frameworks rely on formulation of standards of quality, which are defined as minimum acceptable resource and social conditions. Formulation of standards of quality involves elements of both science and values, and both of these elements must be integrated into informed judgments on the part of park and wilderness managers. That is, managers must ultimately make value-based judgments about the maximum acceptable level of visitor-caused impacts to the resource base and the quality of the visitor experience. However, such judgments should be as informed as possible by scientific data on the relationships between visitor use and resulting impacts and the degree to which park and wilderness visitors and other interest groups judge such impacts to be acceptable. Such information represents the “values of science” to managing carrying capacity in parks and wilderness. A growing body of literature has begun to address the corresponding “science of values,” and how this type of information might be integrated in park and wilderness management. Visitor-based research has employed normative theory and techniques to explore the acceptability of a range of resource and social impacts related to visitor use, and findings from these studies are being integrated into a body of knowledge and applied in management decision-making. Conceptual and methodological extensions of the normative approach are currently being explored in a variety of park and wilderness contexts, and new theoretical and empirical approaches are being adapted to address trade-offs inherent in carrying capacity. In these ways, the science of values is progressing to meet the opportunities and challenges of the values of science to park and wilderness management. The concept of carrying capacity, along with the theoretical and methodological approaches described in this paper, can be extended to a large number of natural resource and environmental issues.     

Spatially Characterizing Visitor Use and Its Association with Informal Trails in Yosemite Valley Meadows

Ecological impacts associated with nature-based recreation and tourism can compromise park and protected area goals if left unrestricted. Protected area agencies are increasingly incorporating indicator-based management frameworks into their management plans to address visitor impacts. Development of indicators requires empirical evaluation of indicator measures and examining their ecological and social relevance. This study addresses the development of the informal trail indicator in Yosemite National Park by spatially characterizing visitor use in open landscapes and integrating use patterns with informal trail condition data to examine their spatial association. Informal trail and visitor use data were collected concurrently during July and August of 2011 in three, high-use meadows of Yosemite Valley. Visitor use was clustered at statistically significant levels in all three study meadows. Spatial data integration found no statistically significant differences between use patterns and trail condition class. However, statistically significant differences were found between the distance visitors were observed from informal trails and visitor activity type with active activities occurring closer to trail corridors. Gender was also found to be significant with male visitors observed further from trail corridors. Results highlight the utility of integrated spatial analysis in supporting indicator-based monitoring and informing management of open landscapes. Additional variables for future analysis and methodological improvements are discussed.     

Visitor perceptions of rural landscapes: a case study in the Peak District National Park, England

Maintaining national parks is an integral policy tool to conserve rare habitats. However, because national parks are funded by taxpayers, they must also serve the needs of the general public. Increasingly, and thanks to today's diverse society, there is evidence that this creates challenges for park managers who are pulled in two opposing directions: to conserve nature on the one hand and to meet different visitor expectations on the other. This tension was explored in the Peak District National Park, a rural landscape dominated by heather moorland and sheep farming in Northern England where research was conducted to determine how social class and ethnicity shaped perceptions of the park. Results uncovered that social class played a very strong role in shaping perceptions of this region with 'middle class' respondents reacting far more favourably to the park than people from more working class backgrounds. We observed ethnicity playing a similar role, though our results are less significantly different.     

Who Visits a National Park and What do They Get Out of It?: A Joint Visitor Cluster Analysis and Travel Cost Model for Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park visitor data were obtained from a survey collected for the National Park Service by the Park Studies Unit at the University of Idaho. Travel cost models have been conducted for national parks in the United States; however, this study builds on these studies and investigates how benefits vary by types of visitors who participate in different activities while at the park. Visitor clusters were developed based on activities in which a visitor participated while at the park. The clusters were analyzed and then incorporated into a travel cost model to determine the economic value (consumer surplus) that the different visitor groups received from visiting the park. The model was estimated using a zero-truncated negative binomial regression corrected for endogenous stratification. The travel cost price variable was estimated using both 1/3 and 1/4 the wage rate to test for sensitivity to opportunity cost specification. The average benefit across all visitor cluster groups was estimated at between $235 and $276 per person per trip. However, per trip benefits varied substantially across clusters; from $90 to $103 for the “value picnickers,” to $185–$263 for the “backcountry enthusiasts,” $189–$278 for the “do it all adventurists,” $204–$303 for the “windshield tourists,” and $323–$714 for the “creature comfort” cluster group.     

An Assessment of Road Impacts on Wildlife Populations in U.S. National Parks

Current United States National Park Service (NPS) management is challenged to balance visitor use with the environmental and social consequences of automobile use. Wildlife populations in national parks are increasingly vulnerable to road impacts. Other than isolated reports on the incidence of road-related mortality, there is little knowledge of how roads might affect wildlife populations throughout the national park system. Researchers at the Western Transportation Institute synthesized information obtained from a system-wide survey of resource managers to assess the magnitude of their concerns on the impacts of roads on park wildlife. The results characterize current conditions and help identify wildlife-transportation conflicts. A total of 196 national park management units (NPS units) were contacted and 106 responded to our questionnaire. Park resource managers responded that over half of the NPS units’ existing transportation systems were at or above capacity, with traffic volumes currently high or very high in one quarter of them and traffic expected to increase in the majority of units. Data is not generally collected systematically on road-related mortality to wildlife, yet nearly half of the respondents believed road-caused mortality significantly affected wildlife populations. Over one-half believed habitat fragmentation was affecting wildlife populations. Despite these expressed concerns, only 36% of the NPS units used some form of mitigation method to reduce road impacts on wildlife. Nearly half of the respondents expect that these impacts would only worsen in the next five years. Our results underscore the importance for a more systematic approach to address wildlife-roadway conflicts for a situation that is expected to increase in the next five to ten years.     

A Proposed Methodology to Assess the Quality of Public Use Management in Protected Areas

In recent years, the goal of nature preservation has faced, almost worldwide, an increase in the number of visitors who are interested in experiencing protected areas resources, landscapes and stories. Spain is a good example of this process. The rapidly increasing numbers of visitors have prompted administrations and managers to offer and develop a broad network of facilities and programs in order to provide these visitors with information, knowledge and recreation. But, are we doing it the best way? This research focuses on developing and applying a new instrument for evaluating the quality of visitor management in parks. Different areas are analyzed with this instrument (78 semi-quantitative indicators): planning and management capacity (planning, funding, human resources), monitoring, reception, information, interpretation, environmental education, training, participation and volunteer's programs. Thus, we attempt to gain a general impression of the development of the existing management model, detecting strengths and weaknesses. Although Spain's National Parks constituted the specific context within which to develop the evaluation instrument, the design thereof is intended to provide a valid, robust and flexible method for application to any system, network or set of protected areas in other countries. This paper presents the instrument developed, some results obtained following its application to Spanish National parks, along with a discussion on the limits and validity thereof.     

Assessment of the Effectiveness of Protected Areas Management in Iran: Case Study in Khojir National Park

The requirement to assess the management effectiveness (ME) in protected areas (PAs) is increasing around the world to help improve management and accountability. An evaluation of ME for Khojir National Park (KNP), one of the Iran’s oldest PAs, was conducted using a multi-method approach that consisted of structured interviews, open interviews, and site visits. This was the first ME evaluation in Iran. The structured interview was based on the management effectiveness tracking tool methodology. KNP received an average score of 43 %, which is lower than the global average, illustrating that its general management was in the low-intermediate level. The indices of legal status, resource inventory, planning for land and water use, regulations, and objectives received the highest average scores, whereas education and awareness, community co-management, regular work plan, boundary demarcation, visitor facilities, budget sources, staff training, protection systems, and management plan received the lowest ones. The management system of KNP was generally established, but many problems of the management still need to be resolved. To improve ME, some countermeasures should be taken, such as increasing funding, strengthening capacity building, planning, and adaptive management, and implementing community participation.     

Simulating the effects of Glen Canyon Dam releases on Grand Canyon river trips

The Shechter-Lucas wilderness use simulation model (WUSM) has been modified to quantify the effects of fluctuating Glen Canyon Dam releases on Grand Canyon river trips. The model now simulates changes in flow as predicted by the Streamflow Synthesis and Reservoir Regulation computer model for the Colorado River. This revised WUSM provides data on several flow-related effects, including delays at rapids, encounters with other parties, and the time available for visiting attraction sites. Nine flow alternatives are evaluated and compared. Analysis of these outputs provides useful information to the Bureau of Reclamation on how the operation of Glen Canyon Dam effects river trips through Grand Canyon National Park.     

Perceptions and Behaviors of Indigenous Populations Regarding Illegal Use of Protected Area Resources in East Africa’s Mountain Gorilla Landscape

Illegal activities and use of park resources are the main challenges facing mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) conservation and the protection of their habitats in the East Africa’s Greater Virunga Transboundary Landscape (GVTL). Indigenous residents around GVTL are considered the primary illegal users of park resources. Despite this, there is limited understanding of the current and past perceptions of indigenous residents living in communities adjacent to two GVTL parks; Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in Uganda. Equally, there is also limited understanding regarding the actual incidences of illegal activities inside both parks. This paper addresses these gaps. Perception data were collected from indigenous residents living adjacent to both parks. Further, Ranger-based Monitoring (RbM) data from both parks were analyzed to determine actual numbers and types of illegal activities over the 9-year period. Interestingly, findings indicated that residents perceived the prevalence of illegal activities to be decreasing across GVTL. To the contrary, RbM findings indicated that the number of actual illegal activities was increasing significantly, particularly in Volcanoes National Park. The discrepancy found between the two perspectives provides for a discussion of the social biases potentially present in these data, and their implications for management. Results also illuminated the subsistence-related nature of most illegal behaviors and suggest that to reduce illegal activities and local dependency on park resources, park management must work with communities and support them in tapping into alternative livelihoods and finding ways to address community household subsistence needs.     

The Influence of Place Attachment and Experience Use History on Perceived Depreciative Visitor Behavior and Crowding in an Urban National Park

Research on recreational place attachment suggests that place identity, or the emotional/symbolic ties people have to places, and place dependence, which describes a functional attachment to a specific place, influence the perception of social and environmental site conditions. Recent research, however, has found that place attachment is not always a predictor of such perceptions. This study investigated the influence of place attachment and experience use history on the perception of depreciative visitor behavior, recreation impacts and crowding in an urban national park. In 2006, 605 on-site visitors to the heavily-used Viennese part of the Danube Floodplains National Park were asked about past experience, place attachment, perceptions of depreciative visitor behavior, crowding, changes in visitor numbers during the past ten years, and recreation impacts on wildlife. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the two dimensions of place attachment. Linear regression analyses found that place identity and place dependence were related to some perceived depreciative visitor behaviors and visitor number changes but not to crowding, while experience use history additionally related to perceived crowding. Visitors with higher place attachment and past experience were more sensitive to social and environmental site conditions. Management implications of the findings are discussed.     

Toward the Improvement of Trail Classification in National Parks Using the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum Approach

Trail settings in national parks are essential management tools for improving both ecological conservation efforts and the quality of visitor experiences. This study proposes a plan for the appropriate maintenance of trails in Chubusangaku National Park, Japan, based on the recreation opportunity spectrum (ROS) approach. First, we distributed 452 questionnaires to determine park visitors’ preferences for setting a trail (response rate = 68 %). Respondents’ preferences were then evaluated according to the following seven parameters: access, remoteness, naturalness, facilities and site management, social encounters, visitor impact, and visitor management. Using nonmetric multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis, the visitors were classified into seven groups. Last, we classified the actual trails according to the visitor questionnaire criteria to examine the discrepancy between visitors’ preferences and actual trail settings. The actual trail classification indicated that while most developed trails were located in accessible places, primitive trails were located in remote areas. However, interestingly, two visitor groups seemed to prefer a well-conserved natural environment and, simultaneously, easily accessible trails. This finding does not correspond to a premise of the ROS approach, which supposes that primitive trails should be located in remote areas without ready access. Based on this study’s results, we propose that creating trails, which afford visitors the opportunity to experience a well-conserved natural environment in accessible areas is a useful means to provide visitors with diverse recreation opportunities. The process of data collection and analysis in this study can be one approach to produce ROS maps for providing visitors with recreational opportunities of greater diversity and higher quality.     

Chronology of Awareness About US National Park External Threats

The objective of this paper is to raise understanding of the history of protected area external threat awareness in the United States and at World Protected Area Congresses. The earliest concerns about external threats to US national parks began in the late nineteenth century: a potential railroad transgression of Yellowstone National Park in the 1880s. During the early and mid 1930s, George Wright and colleagues focused on outside boundary concerns like of hunting and trapping of furbearers, grazing, logging, disease and hybridization between species. In the 1960s, a worldwide recognition began about the role of outside habitat fragmentation/isolation on nature reserves and human generated stressors crossing their boundaries. The State of the Park Report 1980 added a plethora of threats: oil/gas and geothermal exploration and development, hydropower and reclamation projects, urban encroachment, roads, resorts, and recreational facilities. The early 1980s ushered in political interference with NPS threats abatement efforts as well as Congressional legislative initiatives to support the abatement challenges of the agency. By 1987, the Government Accounting Office issued its first report on National Park Service (NPS) progress in dealing with external threats. Climate change impacts on parks, especially in terms of animals adjusting their temperature and moisture requirements by latitude and altitude, surfaced in the technical literature by the mid-1980s. By 1992, the world parks community stressed the need to integrate protected areas into the surrounding landscape and human community. The importance of the matrix has gradually gained appreciation in the scientific community. This chronology represents one example of national park and protected areas’ institutional history contributing to the breath of modern conservation science.     

Improving Operational Planning and Management of National Parks in Turkey: A Case Study

The purpose this study was to improve operational planning and management of national parks in Turkey to balance conservation use and sustainable management. Souksu National Park (SNP) was chosen as the study area. The data were obtained from interviews of 182 visitor groups (in total, 819 people) and analyzed using correlation, factor, discriminant, and regression analyses. It was found that the most important factors affecting operational planning and management of SNP are (1) travel cost, (2) visitor welfare level, (3) intensity of use, (4) size of visitor group, (5) type of recreational demand. The main source of visitors to SNP is from a zone within a 0–90-km radius. This region comprised 53.85% of total visitors to the park. The capital of Turkey (Ankara) is the most important source of visitors from within this zone. The optimum activity mix in SNP is also determined. Picnicking, viewing the scenery, and nature walks or trekking comprised the main uses of the park. It is anticipated that these findings will help to improve operational planning and sustainable management of the national park and the environment.     

An external validity test of intended behavior: Comparing revealed preference and intended visitation in response to climate change

We compare revealed preference and survey response estimates of changes in National Park visitation behavior from climate change. The revealed preference model is estimated from a time-series regression analysis of past visitation as a function of historic weather variability. We find no statistical difference between the revealed preference regression estimates and intended behavior estimates from a visitor survey for the total number of National Park visits. Confidence intervals for the two models overlap, and the mean estimates of the change in visitation are within 12% of each other. The paper concludes with the implications for natural resource planners and managers who must frequently evaluate the effects of alternative policies before the selection of a preferred alternative, and also must plan for accommodating changes in visitor use.