ENVIRONMENTAL AUDITING: Economic Values of Recreational Power Boating Resources in Pennsylvania

/ The travel cost method was used to estimate the economic value of seven major power boating resources in Pennsylvania. A significant relationship between number of visitor trips and cost per visitor trip existed for five of the seven water bodies. The annual total value for those five resources was $396 million, which was 2.5 times greater than the total out-of-pocket expenditures of approximately $157 million visitors spent to visit them. Research results can help resource managers plan and craft programs and policies that are founded on economic values of the natural resources involved.     

Managing Recreational Trail Environments for Mountain Bike User Preferences

N  = 406), highlight some important issues concerning the design and management of wildland recreation environments that are primarily used for mountain biking. For example, bikers were found to significantly prefer water bars above all other tested soil erosion management techniques; trail erosion factors, including the presence of rocks, roots, and gullies, all added to biking experiences on average; trail design factors, such as the presence of turns, bumps, jumps, and obstacles, all added to biking experiences in general. These findings were used to address questions that resource managers should consider when striving to effectively manage wildland recreation areas primarily used for mountain biking.     

Mount St. Helens: A case study of managing for change in wildland recreation

Mount St. Helens provides an interesting case study of a forest and wildland area that has been radically altered in recent history. As a result of volcanic activity, the recreation environment has changed with respect to the setting, climbing opportunities, and motivations for mountaineering. An evaluation process using both qualitative and quantitative methods was developed to determine what the motivations, demographic characteristics, and preferred management techniques were for the posteruption Mount St. Helens mountain-climbing visitor. Results suggest that changes have occurred in the “new” or posteruption climbing visitor. These changes have not all been congruent with those anticipated by management. For example, the climbing visitor is now less interested in climbing opportunities and more concerned with seeing the crater and other volcanic-related features. This article discusses the findings of this research in light of how resource managers might consider the issue of visitor changes in both demands and types of uses. For example, determining quota numbers based on sociological determinants (e.g., desire for solitude) need to be firmly grounded in who the visitors actually are rather than who they were. Consequently, management tools such as the Recreational Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) and Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) may need to be altered to accommodate a changing resource or visitor base. These and other findings have implications for the future management practices of the Mount St. Helens area and other environments where the recreation resources have undergone rapid and profound change.     

Recreation impacts in some riparian forests of the Eastern United States

Ecological impacts on camp and picnic sites were examined in three National Park Service units along the Delaware and New rivers, in the eastern United States. All sites experienced pronounced impact to trees, groundcover vegetation, and soils. The nature and magnitude of impacts in these riparian forests were quite similar to those reported in wilderness areas in the mountainous western states and northern Minnesota, despite more favorable growing conditions. The relationship between amount of use and amount of impact and the importance of differences in type of use and environment were also roughly comparable. High-use sites were more heavily impacted than low-use sites, but differences were small when compared with differences in amount of use. The areal extent of impact was the major difference between sites in different environments and sites used by different clienteles. This suggests that the effectiveness of basic strategies for managing impact should not differ greatly between regions. Here, as elsewhere, actions taken to control the areal extent of impact appear to be particularly important.     

Soil loss as a measure of carrying capacity in recreation environments

This article describes three applications of the Universal Soil Loss Equation for further defining differences between natural environments in terms of their suitabilities for recreation use. Physical capacity limits based upon vulnerability to erosion and loss of soil productivity are discussed. Examples include: (a) applications to site planning and comparison of existing campsites; (b) use of the methodology for setting limits of acceptable change; and (c) characterization of third-order or larger watersheds that compare ecological land type interpretations with those based upon application of the equation.     

Application of the wilderness travel simulation model to the Appalachian Trail in Vermont

The wilderness travel simulation model estimates complex recreation use patterns in park and wilderness environments. The model was applied to a section of the Appalachian Trail in Vermont, a linear, long-distance, multiple-access trail system characteristic of the eastern United States. Many portions of the trail, including the study area, are now experiencing high use. The model estimated the average number of trail encounters per party day to be 3.3 and the average number of camp encounters per party night to be 2.3. Other measures of recreation use were also estimated that should prove useful to trail management and administration. Three trail management scenarios were tested, providing several preliminary insights to managers: the desirability of use redistributions as opposed to across-the-board reductions and needed emphasis on spatial use patterns and campsite encounters. Only minor modifications to the program were needed in applying the model to the trail environment and the model functioned accurately according to the validity tests performed.     

Static modeling of dynamic recreation behavior: Implications for prediction and welfare estimation

This paper examines the consequences of using a static model of recreation trip-taking behavior when the underlying decision problem is dynamic. Specifically we examine the implications for trip forecasting and welfare estimation using a panel dataset of Lake Michigan salmon anglers for the 1996 and 1997 fishing seasons. We derive and estimate both a structural dynamic model using Bellman's equation, and a reduced-form static model with trip probability expressions mimicking those of the dynamic model. We illustrate an inherent identification problem in the reduced-form model that creates biased welfare estimates, and we discuss the general implications of this for the interpretation of preference parameters in static models. We then use both models to simulate trip taking behavior and show that although their in-sample trip forecasts are similar, their welfare estimates and out-of-sample forecasts are quite different.     

Aid and Violence, with Special Reference to Sierra Leone

This paper looks at how departures from humanitarian principles can be accommodated, legitimised and obscured within the international humanitarian system. It looks particularly at the case of Sierra Leone between 1991 and 1995. It analyses how misinformation about the causes and dynamics of violence and regarding the aid system contribute to the erosion of humanitarian principles.     

Relationship between recreation demand and some natural landscape elements in Turkey: A case study

The study consists of two parts. One part deals with recreation and vacation demands; the other investigates the relationship between recreation demand and some natural landscape elements preferred in the eastern Black Sea coastal zone of Turkey, which has traditionally a rich recreational culture. Home interview surveys were conducted during the summer of 1992. The recreation demand of the study area has been found to be 89.3% including potential demand. The landscape element "sea and seaside" preferred for recreation has been rated the highest in all groups of each of the five variables, namely, age, education, income, occupation, and marital status. The research reported here represents an empirical contribution to the field of landscape preference studies for recreation, especially in the developing countries.     

浅谈关于建立特种设备责任保险制度

特种设备作为危险性较大的工业、民用设备,其发生事故所造成的影响,远远大于一般设施。保险作为消化风险、分化补偿的重要方式,尚未与特种设备建立起完善的事故责任保险制度。本文通过国内外相关制度的比较,探讨建立该制度的必要性及社会的迫切需求。