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David Cole - Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute
Cooperators: Randy Gimblett - University of Arizona; Bob Manning & Steve Lawson - University of Vermont; National Park Service, Washington Office; Rocky Mountain Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit
BACKGROUND
The amount, type, timing, and location of visitor use all have profound effects on the quality of the natural resources and visitor experiences in wilderness. Therefore, it is important to monitor the flow of visitation, in space and over time, and predict how distributions are likely to change in response to both management actions and factors that are not subject to managerial control. Travel simulation models have huge potential as tools for facilitating the planning and management of visitor use distribution in situations where monitoring and prediction of visitor flow is difficult. There are at least three ways in which simulation modeling of recreation use can contribute to improved wilderness management. First, simulation modeling can improve the quality and increase the cost-effectiveness of monitoring programs. Simulation makes it possible to use easily measured indicators (e.g., the number of cars entering through an entrance station or parked at a trailhead) to monitor hard-to-measure parameters (e.g., number of encounters or number of groups walking on particular trails). Second, simulation modeling can help fine-tune existing management programs. For example, how much would use quotas have to be reduced to meet certain social standards? Third, simulation modeling can be used to evaluate alternative future scenarios. Simulation could be used to estimate how travel patterns and the number of encounters between groups might change with increased use in the future.
In the 1970s, Bob Lucas, with the Forest Service's Wilderness Management Research Unit (the precursor to the Leopold Institute) worked with Resources for the Future to develop a wilderness use simulator. The ideas were powerful but technology lagged. Today, technology has caught up. The current effort, led by David Cole, is to encourage further development of simulation technology, largely by promoting cooperation between two groups who have been working on this technology: Bob Manning and his associates at the University of Vermont (particularly Steve Lawson, now at Virginia Tech) and Randy Gimblett, University of Arizona, and Bob Itami, Geodimensions Pty Ltd, Australia. Click here to view a poster on this project.
This cooperative work has culminated in publication of a report that describes the current status of travel simulation modeling for parks and wilderness, including case studies that illustrate how the models work and what they can be used for. Click here to view abstract and download Leopold Institute publication # 560.
We have also combined simulation of visitor use distributions with data on the distribution and condition of official trails, user-created trails and campsites in the Bighorn Crags portion of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. This work is suggestive of the type of data that ideally all wilderness areas would have as the basis for recreation planning and management. Click here for a report on this project.
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