The costs of congestion and wilderness recreation

Existing research on the effects of congestion in wilderness areas suffers from problems associated with asking people directly what they would be willing to pay to avoid congestion under hypothetical circumstances. The work reported here is based on methodologies that infer conclusions from observed behavior. Two inferential methodologies are used to examine visitors' willingness to pay at three California wilderness areas during peak and off-peak use periods. Inferential methodologies do not provide unambiguous measures of consumer surplus. However, they do yield the conclusion that, with the exception of a relatively few individuals, solitude is not of overriding importance. Convenience of timing and the attributes of different wilderness areas appear to be more important than congestion.     

OPTIMAL OPERATION OF SHELBYVILLE AND CARLYLE LAKES1

ABSTRACT: Dams were built by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers on the Kaskaskia River at Shelbyville and Carlyle in Illinois, in 1969 and 1967, respectively. The operation of the Shelbyville and Carlyle Lakes has changed over the years because of considerably lower bankfull channel capacities downstream of the dams than were adopted in the project designs. This study was conducted to review the present operation policy. Intent was to derive a policy for maximizing the overall benefits (or minimizing the overall damages) and to compare these benefits or damages with those with the present policy. The operating rules were optimized through a simulation model which was structured considering the physical nature of the system and the desirable operation in the best interest of various beneficial uses. The expected annual value of overall benefits from recreation and agriculture is shown to increase by $0.2 million with the optimal policy. With the optimal operation, the overall damages are reduced by 76 percent on the average over the 24 years of flow record at Shelbyville and Carlyle.     

Managing brown bears and wilderness recreation on the Kenai Peninsula,Alaska, USA

The Russian River-Cooper Lake-Resurrection River trail system, on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, traverses essential brown bear habitat. To set management guidelines for this area, the trail system was monitored using questionnaire cards and electronic trail counters from 1984 through 1987. This helped to determine the extent and type of human use and human-bear encounters in the area. Management recommendations were intended to reduce the potential displacement of brown bears by hikers and to inform wilderness users of the proper camping techniques to avoid attracting bears to the campsite. An average of 5800 visitors hiked or camped along the trail system each year. Encounters between hikers and brown bears averaged 7/yr while encounters with black bears averaged 35/yr. Minor problems occurred with both the electronic trail counters and the questionnaire. Modilications to these methods are discussed. A Limits of Acceptable Change format should be considered for the trail system to determine the character and future direction of recreational activities and monitoring of the trail system should continue in the future.     

IDENTIFYING CRITICAL ISSUES IN RECREATION PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT: IMPROVING THE MANAGEMENT-RESEARCH PARTNERSHIP1

ABSTRACT: The “nominal group” process is a proven technique to systematically arrive at a consensus about critical information needs in recreation planning and management. Using this process, 41 managers who attended a 1983 conference on river management identified 114 specific information needs grouped under 11 general questions. Clearly, some concerns of administrators are researchable; many are not.     

上海西郊麦期氮素淋溶定位研究

上海西郊水旱轮作地中麦期的淋失研究表明，氮肥淋失的基本形态为硝酸盐氮，施肥后10d左右，形成硝酸盐氮淋溶的高峰期，在整个生育期间，随深度增加，硝酸盐氮浓度峰值向深层推移，但其渗漏深度为80cm左右。氮素的淋失主要发生在11月到次年3月的作物幼苗期，当追肥超过150kg/hm^2后，渗漏量增加很快。     

Hiking Trails and Tourism Impact Assessment In Protected Area: Jiuzhaigou Biosphere Reserve,China

More and more visitors are attracted to protected areas nowadays, which not only bring about economic increase but also seriously adverse impacts on the ecological environment. In protected areas, trails are linkage between visitors and natural ecosystem, so they concentrate most of the adverse impacts caused by visitors. The trampling problems on the trails have been received attentions in the tremendous researches. However, few of them have correlated the environmental impacts to trail spatial patterns. In this project, the trails were selected as assessment objective, the trampling problems trail widening, multiple trail, and root exposure were taken as assessment indicators to assess ecological impacts in the case study area Jiuzhaigou Biosphere Reserve, and two spatial index, connectivity and circularity, were taken to indicate the trail network spatial patterns. The research results showed that the appearing frequency of the trampling problems had inverse correlation with the circularity and connectivity of the trail network, while the problem extent had no correlation with the spatial pattern. Comparing with the pristine trails, the artificial maintenance for the trails such as wooden trails and flagstone trails could prohibit vegetation root from exposure effectively. The research finds will be useful for the future trail design and tourism management.     

Which regional features of Danish agriculture favour the corn bunting in the contemporary farming landscape?

Corn buntings Miliaria calandra were abundant throughout arable agricultural landscapes in Europe, but have catastrophically declined since the mid 1970s with changes in farming practice and now give serious conservation cause for concern. Corn buntings declined in Denmark during 1976–1993, but (almost unique in Europe) have since increased (by up to 11% per annum) in some areas without specific conservation recovery actions. Based on breeding bird surveys in the mid 1990s, highest corn bunting densities occurred on mixed agriculture in west Denmark (Jylland); the species was rarer or absent in regions of highest arable land cover. Corn bunting density and extent of rotational and permanent grassland were correlated, but not with spring sown barley (all known to constitute important corn bunting winter habitat). The extent of spring barley rapidly declined in Denmark during the 1980s, but since 1990, most counties have since shown 2–3% annual increases in this crop, except in Nordjylland, where high densities of corn buntings have remained stable. Elsewhere in Jylland, corn buntings have increased in counties supporting highest densities during the mid 1990s, contrasting stable or declining trends in south and east Denmark where densities were originally lower. After dramatic decreases everywhere in Denmark, corn buntings retain highest breeding densities associated with mixed agriculture, especially where grassland and spring sown barley remained in greatest extent. Although purely based on land use correlation and bird surveillance, these results show an association between mixed farming and favourable conservation status of a species now red-listed throughout much of Europe. Further investigations of habitat use at small spatial scales and throughout the annual cycle are urgently required to better enlighten specific recommendations for wider applicability of guidelines for corn bunting recovery actions elsewhere.     

Response of winter wheat yield and soil microbial biomass to fertilization with ridge mulching-furrow planting in the dry highlands of the Loess Plateau北大核心CSCD

As the typical planting pattern of winter wheat in the dry highlands of the Loess Plateau, ridge mulching-furrow planting (RMFP) has played an important role in fertilizer efficiency of different fertilizers, and the differences in fertilizer efficiency further influence the diversity of the structure of soil microbial communities. The effects of different fertilization practices on winter wheat yield formation, soil microbial biomass carbon (SMBC), soil microbial biomass nitrogen (SMBN), and soil microbial biomass phosphorus (SMBP) were investigated by field experiments during 2014-2016 in the winter wheat growing region of the dry highlands in southern Shanxi. The treatments included four groups, farmer fertilization (FF), monitoring fertilization (MF), monitoring fertilization combined application of manure (MFM), and monitoring fertilization combined application of bio-organic fertilizer (MFB). Results showed a significant increase in winter wheat yield by optimized and balanced fertilization, and the grain yield of MFB was highest among all treatments, with a value of 4 107-5 400 kg/hm2, which was 14.5%-23.2% (P < 0.05) higher than that of FF. The effects of different fertilization treatments on the winter wheat yield formulation mainly depended on spike number; however, no effect was found on kernel number per spike and 1 000-grain weight. Soil microbial biomass was affected by both growth period and fertilization patterns, i.e., the content of SMBC from jointing to flowering stage was highest during the winter wheat growth period, whereas the maximum values of SMBN and SMCP were found during the jointing stage. Changes in the rates of SMBC, SMBN, and SMBP during the entire growth period were less than 50%; however, the average contribution rate of optimized fertilization on SMBC, SMBN, and SMBP reached 90%. Compared to single chemical fertilizer applications, the combined application chemical fertilizer and manure or bio-organic fertilizer significantly improved the contents of SMBC, SMBN, and SMBP; however, the contents of SMBC and SMBN between MFM and MFB had no significant difference, whereas the SMBP of MFB was 19.8%-47.1% (P < 0.05) higher than that of MFM owing to the effect of mixed phosphorus bacteria. The soil microbial biomass C/N and C/P of the different treatments were 6.9-9.8 and 14.4-41.0, respectively, and maximum values occurred during the flowering stage. Given the above, the combined application of reasonable chemical fertilizer and bio-organic fertilizer can effectively improve the winter wheat yield and soil microbial biomass under RMFP cultivation in the dry highlands of the Loess Plateau. © 2018 Science Press. All rights reserved.     

Choice set formation for outdoor destinations: The role of motivations and preference discrimination in site selection for the management of public expenditures on protected areas

Effective public expenditure currently dominates the management focus of many protected areas. This calls for explicit modeling of constraints and motivations that, respectively, obstruct and stimulate visits to selected outdoor destinations. Choice set formation is the result of screening and/or inclusion of specific sites (alternatives) to form the set of sites considered in real choices. Evidence shows that the omission of a structural representation of choice set formation is harmful to econometric inference. Yet, the literature has largely ignored the underlying behavioral phenomenon. We show, using a discrete choice experiment involving selection among seven recreational sites in an Italian national park, that choice set formation is behaviorally relevant, even after controlling for preference discrimination. Motivations (why visit?) are important determinants of preliminary site screening for choice set inclusion, as well as site selection, justifying the additional value of such modeling extension.     

城市自然景区游客环境责任行为影响因素研究

城市自然景区是城市中不可多得的旅游资源和游憩空间,游客旅游行为对城市自然景区的游憩冲击一直是城市旅游管理亟待解决的棘手问题,研究游客的环境责任行为是控制游憩负面冲击,增强城市自然景区可持续发展能力的有效途径。本研究在国内外文献综述和实践观察基础上,将游客社会责任意识引入游客环境冲击感知和环境责任行为的关系研究中,建立了包含生态环境冲击感知、不友善行为感知、游客冲突感知和设施管理冲击感知四个游憩冲击感知变量,自我约束行为和保护促进行为两个环境责任行为变量的"游憩冲击感知—社会责任意识—环境责任行为"理论模型,应用问卷调查和结构方程模型,以长沙岳麓山国家5A级景区为案例,对城市自然景区游客环境责任行为的影响因素及其相互关系展开定量实证研究。研究发现:(1)游客游憩冲击感知对环境责任行为的直接影响作用较小,生态环境冲击感知对环境保护促进行为具有显著正向影响;(2)游客社会责任意识对环境自我约束行为具有显著正向影响,其在游客环境冲击感知、设施管理冲击感知、游客冲突感知与环境责任行为的影响关系中起中介作用;(3)游客冲击感知对社会责任意识的影响主要表现为游客生态环境冲击感知和设施管理冲击感知对游客社会责任意识具有显著的正向影响,而游客冲突感知对游客社会责任意识具有显著的负向影响。根据研究结论,文章最后指出城市自然景区游客环境责任行为若干管理启示。