Recent research has emphasized the need to professionally manage campsites for long-term use, particularly in light of rising visitation to natural protected areas worldwide. Camping regulations vary considerably along the length of any long-distance trail due to the many land types and management agencies involved. Large proportions of long-distance trails have at-large camping policies, resulting in camping problems associated with visitor-chosen or developed campsites. Several long-term monitoring studies in areas with at-large camping policies indicate the expansion and proliferation of individual campsites, and growth of overall camping related impacts, to be a substantial managerial concern. This research evaluates the relative influence of environmental and topographic factors, both collected in the field and modeled in GIS using high-resolution topography (LiDAR) data, on areal measures of campsite impact utilizing Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) penalized regression for factor selection and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) for regressions. Chosen variables in regressions explained 64% of the variation in campsite size and 61% of the variation in the area of vegetation loss on a campsite. Results indicate four variables managers can utilize to enhance the sustainability of campsites: use level, overnight site type, and terrain characteristics relating to slope and topographic roughness. Results support indirect management methods that rely on the design and location of campsites and trails and not the effectiveness of enforcement or restricting visitor freedom. In the face of rising use, techniques and concepts presented aid in identifying or creating ecologically sustainable campsites. / Master of Science / Many land management agencies, both in the U.S. and internationally, have dual, competing objectives related to the sustainability of recreation: one to protect the quality of natural resources and one to provide for recreational access and experiences. Increasing visitation has the potential to negatively impact natural resources and threaten the quality of visitors’ experiences on public lands. The majority of recreation impacts occur as a result of visitors spending time on or near recreation sites (e.g. campsites or vistas) or visitors traveling between these recreation sites on trail corridors. A widely accepted and practiced key strategy for managing trail systems is containing use to a sustainably designed and managed formal trail system. Campsites are also key infrastructure for recreational uses, however many protected areas have an inventory of campsites that are mostly visitor selected and created, and are excessively large due to site expansion and present in excessive numbers due to site proliferation. While the practice of closing undesirable campsites is common in many managed areas, emphasis on actively shifting use to campsites selected or designed for sustainability has been largely ignored. Study objectives were to identify which use-related, environmental, and managerial factors significantly contribute to limiting areal impacts on campsites and to understand the relative influence of each. Field collected data of a 10% sample of campsites along the Appalachian Trail were used in conjunction with data generated using high-resolution elevation data to look at which characteristics relate to areal impacts using multiple regression. Chosen variables in regressions explained 64% of the variation in campsite size and 61% of the variation in the area of vegetation loss on a campsite. Results indicate four variables managers can utilize to enhance the sustainability of campsites: use level, overnight site type, and terrain characteristics relating to slope and topographic roughness. Results support indirect management methods that rely on the design and location of campsites and trails and not the effectiveness of enforcement or restricting visitor freedom. Techniques and concepts presented aid in identifying and creating ecologically sustainable campsites.

An important requirement of a rational policy for provision of outdoor recreation opportunities is some understanding of natural processes and public concern and /or preferences. Computerized land use suitability mapping is a technique which can help find the best location for a variety of developmental actions given a set of goals and other criteria. Over the past two decades, the methods and techniques of land use planning have been engaged in a revolution on at least two fronts as to shift the basic theories and attitudes of which land use decisions are based. The first of these fronts is the inclusion of environmental concerns, and the second is the application of more systematic methods or models. While these automated capabilities have shed new light on environmental issues, they, unfortunately, have failed to develop sufficient intelligence and adaptation to accurately model the dynamics of ecosystems.The work reported proceeds on the belief that neural network models can be used to assess and develop resource management strategies for Mounds State Park, Anderson, Indiana. The study combines a photographic survey technique with a geographic information system (GIS) and artificial neural networks (NN) to investigate the perceived impact of park management activities on recreation opportunities and experiences. It is unique in that it incorporates both survey data with spatial data and an optimizing technique to develop a model for predicting perceived management values for short and long term recreation management.According to Jeannette Stanley and Evan Bak (1988) a neural network is a massively parallel, dynamic systems of highly interconnected interacting parts based on neurobiological models. The behavior of the network depends heavily on the connection details. The state of the network evolves continually with time. Networks are considered clever and intuitive because they learn by example rather than following simple programming rules. They are defined by a set of rules or patterns based on expertise or perception for better decision making. With experience networks become sensitive to subtle relationships in the environment which are not obvious to humans.The model was developed as a counter-propagation network with a four layer learning network consisting of an input layer, a normalized layer, a kohonen layer, and an output layer. The counter-propagation network is a feed-forward network which combines Kohonen and Widrow-Hoff learning rules for a new type of mapping neural network. The network was trained with patterns derived by mapping five variables (slope, aspect, vegetation, soil, site features) and survey responses from three groups. The responses included, for each viewshed, the preference and management values, and three recreational activities each group associated with a given landscape. Overall the model behaves properly in learning the different rules and generalizing in cases where inputs had not been shown to the network apriori. Maps are provided to illustrate the different responses obtained from each group and simulated by the model. The study is not conclusive as to the capabilities of the combination of GIS techniques and neural networks, but it gives a good flavor of what can be achieved when accurate mapping information is used by an intelligent system for decision making. / Department of Landscape Architecture

"It is the purpose of this study to attack one phase of the leisure-time problem: that phase which deals with the recreation program of secondary schools. As effort will be made to determine whether changes are needed in the recreation program of the secondary schools of Hill County Texas in order that they may meet the demands of the new leisure in the light of young people's activities and interests and accepted standards of the present day."--leaf 1.

Changes in climate result in wide-ranging economic impacts, especially for businesses that rely on consistent weather patterns. The North Carolina ski resorts (Beech Mountain Ski Resort, Appalachian Ski Resort, Sugar Mountain Ski Resort, Wolf Ridge Ski Resort, Cataloochee Ski Area, and Sapphire Valley Ski Area) are the southernmost resorts on the east coast in the US. They are able to stay in business because of the diverse terrain and elevation of the Appalachian Mountains where they can see low record temperatures of -34°F. Observable increases in temperature and less snowfall accumulations generate concern for these businesses that rely not only on snow but temperatures low enough to produce their own snow. To understand what may happen in the future, it is pertinent to examine past and ongoing trends. Yearly snowfall data from fall 2010 to spring 2018 were obtained from the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) and interpolated using ordinary kriging. Teleconnections (Arctic Oscillation, El Niño Southern Oscillation, and North Atlantic Oscillation) were examined to help compare similar years to observe possible relationships. The stations that had data for all of the years observed were spatially analyzed through regression kriging (RK) to determine how climate change will affect those areas. A kernel density map was then created from active CoCoRaHS stations to observe which areas need more stations to generate better interpolation data for future years. The results are impactful for the ski resorts, helping them to make effective business decisions based on climate trends and to promote the use of citizen science to improve research efforts.

This dissertation examines how federal land management agencies implement group work processes to meet land management objectives focused on natural resource-dependent outdoor recreation management. This dissertation is composed of two separate studies, one focused on the U.S Forest Service interdisciplinary teams implementing environmental analyses in support of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to comply with the 2005 Travel Management Rule and one focused on U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service management of partnerships to support recreational trails. These studies help answer the question "what factors lead to more or less successful group work in federal land management?" The first study is primarily informed by qualitative analysis and the second study is informed by quantitative and qualitative analyses. Chapter two reports the results and analyses of semi-structured interviews with 49 U.S. Forest Service employees on ten NEPA interdisciplinary teams. Chapter two examines interdisciplinary teams at the US Forest Service that had recently completed environmental analyses for recreational travel management plans in support of the 2005 Travel Management Rule. This study develops typologies of teamwork processes and how teams may change how collaborative they are over time and examines how external context and leadership approaches may influence process outcomes. Chapters three and four report the results of an online survey completed by 89 government and non-government points of contact for trail partnerships. Chapter three explores the factors that influence success in partnerships to support trail work at the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service. Chapter three analyzes the survey responses of 89 federal land managers and non-government persons involved in 69 partnerships to work on trails on U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service lands. This analysis uses linear regression to develop a model of the factors that are important to the success of these trail partnerships. The chapter reveals that trust, interdependence, and capacity are the most important factors to the success of trail partnerships. Chapter four compares the survey responses for 28 partnerships where both the government and non-government point of contact provided complete survey responses. Through comparison of these responses, chapter four explores the concept of agreement in partnerships and how agreement on key factors related to partnership success may relate to ratings of overall partnership success. The final chapter synthesizes the findings of the two studies to examine group work across contexts. Group work that is more collaborative and has higher levels of group interdependence lead to more positive outcomes across both contexts. I conclude by proposing a framework that could incorporate the principles of liberal education and transdisciplinary learning into individual and group training to help federal land managers internalize the findings of this research into their work. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation delves into how federal agencies manage group collaboration to achieve their goals in natural resource-based outdoor recreation. The study consists of two main parts: one focuses on U.S. Forest Service teams working on environmental analyses under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to adhere to the 2005 Travel Management Rule, while the other examines how both the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service manage partnerships to enhance recreational trails. The research seeks to answer the question: what makes group work in federal land management more or less successful? The first part relies on qualitative analysis, examining interdisciplinary teams at the U.S. Forest Service that had recently completed environmental analyses for recreational travel plans. This part identifies teamwork processes, explores how teams evolve in their collaboration, and considers the impact of external factors and leadership styles on their performance. The second part combines both quantitative and qualitative methods, focusing on the factors influencing successful partnerships for trail management within the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service. The study reveals that trust, interdependence, and capacity are key factors contributing to the success of these partnerships. By comparing survey responses from both government and non-governmental partners, the research also explores the relationship between agency-partner agreement on key success indicators and perceptions of overall partnership success. Overall, the findings highlight that collaborative group work with a high level of interdependence leads to better outcomes across different contexts. The dissertation concludes by suggesting a framework that incorporates transdisciplinary learning principles into training programs for federal land managers, helping them apply these research insights in their work.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether goal congruence exists among administrative, supervisory and direct service personnel within public leisure service organizations and among public leisure service organizations of different sizes,. The source of data for the study was a Goal Study Questionnaire distributed to 344 employees of selected leisure service organizations. The results indicated that goal congruence was not established either among duty levels within public leisure service organizations or among public leisure service organizations of different sizes.

The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent the public recreation of Denton under the present administrative setup is serving the needs of the citizenship of Denton. Various agencies affording recreation for their own members or sponsoring recreation activities affecting other inhabitants of Denton were surveyed to determine the present status of administration of public recreation in Denton. The results of the survey were compared with standards set up by the National Recreation Association for cities the size of Denton. From a comparison of the present status and the standards, an effort was made to formulate a basis of administration that would be sound and business-like, well co-ordinated, and consistent with good governmental practice.

This study investigates issues of changing recreation use and management in the Greenstone and Caples Valleys. Its underlying research themes are the differing characteristics and activities of four distinct user-groups, how such differences could contribute to conflict in recreation use and management, and the implications of such for management. The conceptual framework used to deal with these issues is the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS), which is based upon the assumption that quality in recreation experiences and management is best achieved through provision of a range of recreation opportunities. This recognises that objective research input into recreation management cannot substitute for the ultimate subjectivity required in decision-making. Management has two roles here. First, to maintain and/or enhance the range of recreation opportunities availible. Second, to provide users with appropriate signals regarding the availibility of opportunities, and the acceptable norms of use and behaviour. Thus user choice of area and activities undertaken within becomes more a consequence of management action. This differs from most recreation management to date, which has tended to be in response to changing conditions (eg'demand-driven'). The absence of an equitable management approach results in selective reduction of opportunities for certain experiences, as evident from research into effects of conflict/crowding perceptions. In contrast, approaches such as the ROS emphasise management for such opportunities. On this basis and from research results, this study found that maintenance of experiences associated with angling and hunting opportunities in the study area, should be the basis for its management. These opportunities were exploited by relatively more experienced participants. For anglers in particular this was reflected by their characteristics of high activity specialisation. Greater experience and specialisation involved more specific resource requirements and norms of appropriate behaviour. Thus opportunities for hunting and angling in the study area were more susceptible to negative impacts from other uses and users. These impacts would be greatest for angling experiences. This would be more a consequence of perceived inappropriate behaviour by less specialised anglers than a consequence of physical crowding. For hunters these impacts would be primarily a result of concern about the increased presence of others on hunting management, rather than their actual presence. Experiences from the tramping and commercial guided walking opportunities availible are also important, but their participants were relatively less experienced and their recreation opportunities less unique in the region. In the context of an equitable regional ROS approach, there is greater flexibility for their provision elsewhere than there is for experiences from hunting and fishing opportunities. For maintenance of a spectrum of opportunities in the regional ROS, these hunting and angling opportunities should be emphasised in management decision-making. Within the study area itself, management for a regional ROS requires that the Greenstone and Caples Valleys be managed differently. It was clear that the Caples was perceived as providing more 'back-country'-type experience opportunities. In the regional ROS context, management should emphasise maintenance of such opportunities there. Along with this should be noted the greater preference for the CapIes by hunters, and for the Greenstone by anglers.

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