It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, April 15, 2022
Factors including extreme winds, topography and vegetation influenced the severity of burns from Oregon's devastating 2020 megafires
First-of-its-kind study examines the influence of factors that contributed to patterns of high-burn severity during the 2020 megafires in Oregon
IMAGE: SATELLITE IMAGE OF THE RIVERSIDE FIRE IN OREGON, 2020.view more
CREDIT: CODY EVERS
In early September 2020, severe winds, high heat, and prolonged drought conditions led to the explosive growth of wildfires along the western slopes of the Cascades Mountains in the Pacific Northwest. The fires engulfed enormous tracts of forestland, destroyed communities, took dozen of lives, and cost hundreds of millions to fight.
In a first-of-its-kind study examining burn patterns from the 2020 Labor Day fires, researchers at Portland State University studied the influence of weather, topography, vegetation and other factors on burn severity in areas where the fires killed more than 75% of the trees. Their research confirms that extreme winds over the Labor Day holiday were the primary driver of the destructive force of the fires yet demonstrates how forest vegetation structure (e.g., canopy height, the age of trees, etc.) and topography played a significant role in burn severity patterns.
According to the study's co-author, Andrés Holz, associate professor of geography at Portland State, the wet temperate forests of the Cascade Mountains in the Pacific Northwest have a history of experiencing megafires of the scale of those that burned in 2020, but none had occurred since the early twentieth century. Because the scope and scale of the burns were unprecedented in modern times, they provided the research team a unique opportunity to gain a better understanding of the factors that influence the high severity of burns in these rainforests, including those on the western slopes of the Cascades. That understanding can inform planning for future land-use management in forestlands and the social and ecological impacts of extreme fire events in the context of a warming planet.
The research team developed maps for the extent and burn severity for five megafires and examined fire activity over two time periods: September 7-9, 2020, during which extreme winds fueled the explosive growth of the fires, and September 10-17, 2020, during which the fires continued burning under calm wind conditions. They then examined how the forest structure and topography influenced high-burn severity patterns, whether winds affected the relationship between those factors, and how high burn severity was affected by land management practices associated with land ownership.
"90% of the burning occurred during high winds," said Dr. Cody Every, a Research Associate in the Department of Environmental Science and Management at Portland State and the study's lead author. "But we also found that vegetation structure and canopy height were significant in determining where the fire burned more severely."
The research team found that areas with younger trees and low canopy height and cover were particularly susceptible to high mortality rates. As Holz pointed out, this finding is of particular consequence to lumber production in the state, where trees grown on plantations are typically younger, uniformly spaced and located near communities and critical infrastructure.
Drawing on the historical record, the team, which included Portland State researchers Dr. Sebastian Busby and Associate Professor Max Nielsen-Pincus, also suggests that wildfire managers should anticipate re-burns in some areas affected by the 2020 megafires. Recently burned forests typically have higher flammability than unburned areas until the younger forest canopy closes again and finer fuels are shaded.
Given the composition of the temperate rainforests of the western slopes of the Cascade Mountains, where fuel proliferates, and the relationships between factors that contribute to megafires, the research team suggests that treatments such as prescribed fires and fuel reduction are not a practical approach to preventing future conflagrations. Instead, the team argues that we should focus on promoting resilient forests, increasing community preparedness, early suppression response, and hardening infrastructure.
WASHINGTON—A new global analysis of the last 19 million years of seafloor spreading rates found they have been slowing down. Geologists want to know why the seafloor is getting sluggish.
New oceanic crust forms continuously along rifts thousands of miles long on the seafloor, driven by plate tectonics. As subduction pulls old crust down, rifts open up like fissures in an effusive volcano, drawing hot crust toward the surface. Once at the surface, the crust begins to cool and gets pushed away from the rift, replaced by hotter, younger crust.
This cycle is called seafloor spreading, and its rate shapes many global processes, including sea level and the carbon cycle. Faster rates tend to cause more volcanic activity, which releases greenhouse gases, so deciphering spreading rates helps contextualize long-term changes in the atmosphere.
Today, spreading rates top out around 140 millimeters per year, but peaked around 200 millimeters per year just 15 million years ago in some places, according to the new study. The study was published in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters, which publishes high-impact, short-format reports with immediate implications spanning all Earth and space sciences.
The slowdown is a global average, the result of varying spreading rates from ridge to ridge. The study examined 18 ridges, but took a particularly close look at the eastern Pacific, home to some of the globe’s fastest spreading ridges. Because these slowed greatly, some by nearly 100 millimeters per year slower compared to 19 million years ago, they dragged down the world’s average spreading rates.
It's a complex problem to solve, made more difficult by the seafloor’s slow and steady self-destruction.
“We know more about the surfaces of some other planets than we do our own seafloor,” said Colleen Dalton, a geophysicist at Brown University who led the new study. “One of the challenges is the lack of perfect preservation. The seafloor is destroyed, so we’re left with an incomplete record.”
The seafloor is destroyed in subduction zones, where oceanic crust slides under continents and sinks back into the mantle, and is reforged at seafloor spreading ridges. This cycle of creation and destruction takes about every 180 million years, the age of the oldest seafloor. The crust’s magnetic record tracks this pattern, producing identifiable strips every time the Earth’s magnetic field reverses.
Dalton and her co-authors studied magnetic records for 18 of the world’s largest spreading ridges, using seafloor ages and their areas to calculate how much ocean crust each ridge has produced over the last 19 million years. Each ridge evolved a little differently: some lengthened, some shrank; some sped up, but almost all slowed down. The overall result of Dalton’s work is that average seafloor spreading slowed down by as much as 40% over that time.
The driver here might be located at subduction zones rather than spreading ridges: for example, as the Andes grow along the western edge of the South American continent, the mountains push down on the crust.
“Think of it as increased friction between the two colliding tectonic plates,” Dalton said. “A slowdown in convergence there could ultimately cause a slowdown in spreading at nearby ridges.” A similar process could have operated underneath the Himalaya, with the rapidly growing range slowing spreading along the ridges in the Indian Ocean.
However, Dalton points out, this added friction can’t be the only driver of the slowdown, because she found slowing rates globally and mountain growth is regional. Larger-scale processes, like changes in mantle convection, could also be playing a role. In all likelihood, she concludes, it’s a combination of both. To learn more, Dalton hopes to collect absolute plate speeds, rather than the relative speeds used in this study, which will better allow her to determine the cause of the slowdown.
Contact information for the researchers: Colleen Dalton, Brown University, colleen_dalton@brown.edu (UTC-4 hours)
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Notes for Journalists: This research study is freely available until the end of the month. Download a PDF copy of the paper here. Neither the paper nor this press release is under embargo.
Paper title:
“Evidence for a Global Slowdown in Seafloor Spreading Since 15 Ma”
Author information:
Colleen Dalton (corresponding author), Timothy Herbert, Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
Douglas S. Wilson, Marine Science Institute, University of California-Santa Barbara, CA, USA
IMAGE: UBC LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE PROFESSOR FIONN BYRNEview more
CREDIT: LOU CORPUZ-BOSSHART/UBC
Green spaces can promote well-being, but they may not always be benign. Sometimes, they can be a tool for control.
That’s the gist of a new paper that analyzed declassified U.S. military documents to explore how the U.S. forces used landscapes to fight insurgency during the war in Afghanistan.
Author Fionn Byrne, an assistant professor at UBC’s school of architecture and landscape architecture, focused on four projects that ranged in scale from individual tree plantings to large-scale reforestation efforts. Funds for each project came through the Commander Emergency Response Program, a multibillion-dollar program designed to win over the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.
“Previous research by others shows that exposure to trees has measurable positive impacts on physical and mental health,” said Byrne. “These gains in overall health are linked to a more peaceful society. Therefore, I argue that trees, and green spaces in general, can be considered a noncoercive mode of warfare. They can further social cohesion and diminish the likelihood of insurgency.”
For example, in the project Route Francine Green Space, the U.S. military improved a site adjacent to a road in Kandahar Province by planting trees and building playgrounds and other amenities. Route Francine is part of a district that had a high rate of IED detonations, so not only did the project beautify the landscape, but it also helped garner support for the local government and reduced instability in the region.
Alternatively, the Panjshir Valley Green Belt project created jobs for residents by replanting 35,000 trees. Research already shows us that a new forest can influence the mental condition of an entire population, with many individuals gaining from being exposed to nature. A landscape intervention of this type is thus an instance of population-wide psychological modification.
Byrne adds that the paper highlights a gap in current scholarship. Most research has emphasized the effects of war on the landscape rather than investigating how the landscape itself is mobilized as a warfighting tool. Even when researchers have studied how the landscape has been used as a weapon, they have focused on large-scale and destructive manipulation of the environment to achieve direct military objectives. He cited a recent piece in the New York Times that follows this pattern.
“War is rightly associated with death, so, when we see images of U.S. forces planting trees and fostering new life, it is worth looking at this closely,” said Byrne. “We need to study further how militaries have used landscape design in more subversive modes, distinct from an overt weaponization of the environment. This paper demonstrates that using tree planting to impact mental health is a nonviolent, subtle and potentially unchallenged pathway to subdue resistance from a local population.”
He added that this research can provide a lens to study the landscape changes of past wars. It can also help us understand that the landscape remains implicated in many conflicts, including the ongoing effects of colonization and other territorial struggles. Further research will need to examine the specific legacy impacts of past landscape changes.
“Though it is beyond the scope of this paper, I can add that landscape architects need to understand better the role of the profession in, for example, tree-planting efforts. I hope my research makes us question the benign good of tree planting and reminds us that green spaces are neither neutral nor apolitical.”
Verdant Persuasion: The Use of Landscape as a Warfighting Tool during Operation Enduring Freedom
Huge Amazon swamp carbon stores under threat, study says
The largest peatlands in the Amazon rainforest, which hold a vast, concentrated amount of carbon, are under increasing threat from changing land use, research suggests.
IMAGE: PALM SWAMP IN LOWLAND PERUVIAN AMAZONIA (LPA)view more
CREDIT: CREDIT IAN T. LAWSON, UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS, UK.
Urgent protection is needed to prevent carbon gas emissions from decomposing peat swamps in lowland Peruvian Amazonia (LPA) – which are bigger than previously thought.
Scientists discovered small but growing areas of deforestation across the LPA, including an 11-fold increase in CO2 emissions linked to mining, between 2000 and 2016.
The research, led by the Universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews used field, satellite and land-cover data to estimate harmful greenhouse gas emissions, develop maps and create the first data-driven peat thickness models of Peru’s tropical peatlands.
Field teams including scientists from Peru's Insituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana, the University of Leeds and other collaborating institutions mapped new stretches of peat swamps and estimated the distribution of peat across Peruvian Amazonia for the first time.
At 62,714 km2 – an area approximately the size of Sri Lanka – the peatlands contain twice as much carbon as previously estimated.
Peat in the LPA stores around 5.4 billion tonnes of carbon, which is almost as much as all of Peru’s forests but in just five percent of its land area, showing how valuable a resource these peatlands are, experts say.
Tropical peatlands are among the most carbon dense ecosystems in the world but agriculture expansion, infrastructure development and mining has led to the loss of large peatland areas.
Deforestation and drainage inhibits the accumulation of essential organic matter in the swamps and promotes rapid decomposition of peat, which in turn releases large quantities of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere.
Drained peatlands are also prone to fires which can lead to a large and rapid increase of emissions.
In recognition of these threats, Peru has passed legislation which, for the first time, mandates the explicit protection of its peatlands for climate-change mitigation.
Enforcing this legislation will depend on continued mapping of peatland distribution and upon further investigation of its carbon storage.
Dr Adam Hastie, Postdoctoral Researcher from the School of GeoSciences, who led the study, said: “We knew that Peru contained substantial peatlands but we previously only had ground data from a few regions, and we didn't realise how extensive the peatlands were.
Our high-resolution maps can be used to directly inform conservation and climate mitigation policies and actions such as Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Agreement, to avoid further degradation and CO2 emissions.”
Dr Ian Lawson, Senior Lecturer from the University of St Andrews, who led the international team, said: “Peatlands are increasingly recognized as carbon hotspots and a key component of the planet’s carbon cycle. They store half of all the soil carbon on the planet, but they’re vulnerable to human pressures. It’s important for all of us that we know where they are so that we can protect them and help to mitigate climate change.
This work is the latest result of more than a decade of sustained international collaboration. It has taken a lot of effort by the team, making measurements and collecting samples throughout the swamp forests, to produce this first map of peatlands covering all of Peru’s Amazonian region. The next step is to apply the same methods in other parts of the Amazon Basin. There’s still a lot to be learned.”
Dr Dennis del Castillo Torres, from the Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonia Peruana and project partner of the study, said: “Our peatlands in Peru have the potential to mitigate climate change because the sustainable use of the most abundant peatland palm species, Mauritia flexuosa, can be promoted.”
Dr Euridice Honorio Coronado, NERC Knowledge Exchange Fellow at the University of St Andrews and co-author, added: “Conserving peatlands will also support livelihoods and prevent a situation like South-East Asia where almost 80 per cent of peatlands have been cleared and drained."
The study, published in Nature GeoScience, was funded by NERC, Leverhulme Trust, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Wildlife Conservation Society, Concytec/British Council/Embajada Británica, Lima/Newton Fund, the governments of the United States of America & Norway Knowledge Exchange Fellowship.
The team thanked SERNANP, SERFOR and GERFOR for providing research permits, and the indigenous and local communities, research stations and tourist companies for giving consent and allowing access to the forests.
For further information, please contact: Rhona Crawford, Press and PR Office, 07876391498rhona.crawford@ed.ac.uk
IMAGE: THE DEFORESTATION RISK FOR COLOMBIA, FROM LOW TO HIGH RISK. THE PRESENCE OF FARC WAS THE MOST INFLUENTIAL VARIABLE DETERMINING THE FATE OF THE DEFORESTED AREA, AS THE ODDS OF FOREST CONVERSION TO COCA CROPS OVER CONVERSION TO CATTLE OR OTHER CROPS IN AREAS WITH PRESENCE OF FARC IS 308.04% HIGHER THAN THE ODDS IN AREAS WITHOUT FARC.view more
CREDIT: CAMILA GUERRERO-PINEDA, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
In 2019, a landmark report gave the world its first report card on biodiversity loss. There was one crystal clear conclusion: human actions threaten more species with global extinction than ever before.
According to the IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) report, currently 25 percent, or 1 million species, are threatened with extinction. The drivers of change have only accelerated in the past 50 years. The human population has doubled to 8 billion, contributing to climate change, land and sea-use change, overexploitation of resources and pollution. Two-thirds of the oceans are impacted. 85 percent of wetlands have been lost.
As a result of these stark data findings, the IPBES agreement fingered human land-use changes as the primary culprit.
Now, an ASU research team has developed the first-of-its-kind study that combines conservation with practical economic tools for a case study of Colombia, South America, a high priority but underfunded country for biodiversity conservation.
“We focused on the case study of the country of Colombia to demonstrate an approach to maximize the biodiversity benefits from limited conservation funding while ensuring that landowners maintain economic returns equivalent to agriculture,” said Leah Gerber, who was lead author of the IPBES report, and is a professor of conservation science in the School of Life Sciences and founding director of the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes (CBO) at Arizona State University.
While they found that Colombia would need to substantially increase its conservation spending,
the study developed a prioritization map that permits policymakers to target conservation actions toward regions where conservation benefits are the highest and economic impacts are low---giving the biggest ecological bang for the buck.
To do so, Gerber teamed up with Colombia native Camila Guerrero-Pineda, who, just three years ago, left her home country to join ASU and be mentored as a graduate student by Gerber and Gwenllian D. Iacona, assistant research professor at the School of Life Sciences, to ultimately make a difference back home.
“It’s fair to categorize that Colombia is a megadiverse country” said Guerrero-Pineda. “It arguably has some of the greatest biodiversity in the world, given its size, and a lot of scientists and academics in Colombia fear the ecological consequences of human actions.”
Colombia ranks among one of just 17 megadiverse countries in the world.
Colombia possesses a unique geography and natural beauty as the only South American country with combined coastlines of the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Seas, along with the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, which at 13,000m, is the world’s highest coastal mountain range.
Human actions now threaten the only freshwater species of its kind, the pink river dolphin. The cotton-top tamarin. The Orinoco crocodile. The 100-pound, giant capybara rodent. The spectacled bear. Plants (flor de mayo orchid), amphibians (golden poison frog) and butterflies (Colombian eighty-eight) too.
All unique species to Colombia. And all could vanish.
In the South American continent, Colombia stands out as a region that has retained its biodiversity, one of the few silver linings due to a long history of violent, human conflicts. Prior to a 2016 peace agreement, Colombia had government instability and a decades long guerrilla war led by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and other minor groups.
“FARC had a lot of control over the forests, and it prevented a lot of economic development” said Guerrero-Pineda. Since the FARC controlled the forest for coca leaf (the plant used to produce cocaine) production and the drug trade to finance five decades of asymmetrical warfare, one effect was to prevent unbridled development ---and inadvertently preserve biodiversity.
In the ASU-led study, they found that the probability of transformation to cattle and other crops decreases with distance to roads, while the probability of transformation to coca increases. These results suggest that coca crops are grown in more isolated areas, away from roads, compared with cattle.
The presence of FARC was the most influential variable determining the fate of the deforested area, as the odds of forest conversion to coca crops over conversion to cattle or other crops in areas with presence of FARC is 308.04% higher than the odds in areas without FARC.
“It also prevented a lot of scientific monitoring because scientists were afraid of going into the forests,” said Guerrero-Pineda.
But Colombia now stands at a biodiversity crossroads. The 2016 peace agreement has now brought unprecedented development. During the past 5 years alone, GDP growth has been 5-6% every year.
During that time, the deforestation rate rose by 44% after the peace agreement. Palm oil production, logging, mining, and gas oil extraction are some of the leading culprits besides agriculture development.
Do nothing, and Gerber’s team estimates the current biodiversity loss rate could increase by 50% by 2033.
Paradise lost or opportunity cost?
But how does Colombia preserve its biodiversity while balancing the need for economic development? Gerber’s team thinks they found a new blueprint to not only aid Colombia, but also extend to other policymakers in other countries to help make a difference.
For the first time, they applied a unique quantitative model that relates conservation investment to national biodiversity outcomes.
“The methods developed here offer an approach to identifying areas of greatest conservation returns on investment by balancing cost of conservation action, measured as opportunity cost for agriculture, and biodiversity impacts,” said study lead author Camila Guerrero-Pineda.
When it comes to development, everything economically comes down to opportunity costs.
An extreme example of the choices nations must make is often referred to as the “Guns versus butter” model of economics. It refers to whether a country is more interested in spending money on war or feeding their people---but it can’t do both, and there are always going to be tradeoffs.
In Colombia’s case, it’s economic development versus biodiversity outcomes. Or more colloquially, parks versus parking lots. Preservation versus development.
Their team modeled the opportunity cost of conservation (OCC) to agriculture as an approximation of the expected cost of compensating a landowner for avoiding conversion of their property.
“Opportunity cost is what you're missing out on or what you're not doing because of a decision to do something else,” said Guerrero-Pineda. “What that means is that someone is not going to be able to use the land that is going to be used for conservation.”
They assumed in the modeling of a protection cost that deforestation can be counteracted by compensating the land owner, either by purchase, such as the setting the sale value of a parcel equal to its expected future cash flow, or as continued payments for ecosystem services.
To avoid this additional biodiversity loss, Gerber’s groups estimated that Colombia would have to invest $37-39 million USD annually in the best and worst-case scenarios of deforestation. According to them, this means an increase in its conservation spending of 7.69-10.16 million USD per year. Avoiding this decline (preventing further loss) would require $61-63 million USD annually, which is more than twice the conservation spending before the peace agreement.
“Our strategy for targeting conservation funding involves first identifying regions with a high
risk of forest conversion to agriculture [such as cattle ranching or other crops],” said Gerber.
“More broadly, the research agenda is around incorporating cost into decision-making to achieve the most outcomes, given limited resources.”
They found that the Andean region contains the highest mean OCC, reflecting a very strong probability of agricultural conversion of the remaining forests. Following closely behind were the Pacific, the Caribbean and the Orinoquía regions. The Amazon region, the one with the lowest mean probability of agricultural conversion, had the greatest forest cover percentage and the greatest forest area, had a much lower OCC.
“One of the things we're excited about with this work is that it's a demonstration of the potential of this idea of using return on investment for thinking about allocated conservation resources,” said co-author Gwenllian D. Iacona. “And so, we took these two high profile approaches that are out there, called the Waldron Model and the Species Threat Abatement and Restoration (STAR) metric, and we put them together so country-level decision makers can make the best-informed decisions at that type of scale.”
Their results can also assist in the planning of land preservation and national parks. In Colombia, the National Natural Park System is working to declare five new protected areas, and to expand three more. This builds on evidence showing that more effective and lasting conservation outcomes are achieved when governance empowers local communities and support their environmental stewardship, including indigenous communities, reserves and Afro-Colombian lands.
CAPTION
Their team modeled the opportunity cost of conservation (OCC) to agriculture as an approximation of the expected cost of compensating a landowner for avoiding conversion of property. To avoid this additional biodiversity loss, Gerber’s groups estimated that Colombia would have to invest $37-39 million USD annually in the best and worst-case scenarios of deforestation.
“I think Camila’s work really sets us up to assist entities, whether they be countries or companies, in quantitatively measuring the impact of conservation interventions on different metrics, whether they need biodiversity or climate mitigation, or other types of conservation strategies,” said Gerber. “I'm optimistic that we'll be able to build and scale this to improve conservation outcomes more generally.”
“Camila, for example, in the summer, will be working on a collaborative USAID project with Conservation International in Peru and we're going to be applying a similar approach to identify green economic growth pathways.”
Their approach is another prime example of ASU’s commitment to advance research to finding practical solutions of social, economic and today’s urgent environmental challenges.
“So, in that sense, Camila’s foundational work is not only novel, but also represents a practical foundation for broad applications globally”, said Gerber. “We're exploring applications in several other countries and for additional sustainable development goals. By coupling this work with market-based incentives, this work offers to rapidly accelerate our ability to achieve sustainable development goals.”
IMAGE: LONG TRAFFIC LINES WERE JUST ONE OF THE IMPACTS AND ISSUES UNH RESEARCH FOUND DURING THE PANDEMIC WHEN THERE WAS A SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF VISITORS TO NEW ENGLAND NATIONAL FORESTS.view more
CREDIT: USFS
DURHAM, N.H.—Many human experiences were uniquely altered during the COVID-19 pandemic including a significant rise in the number of people seeking outdoor recreation options during quarantine. In a series of studies looking at this trend, researchers at the University of New Hampshire found a dramatic increase during the pandemic of visitors to the parks and protected areas of New England that resulted in significant social, situational and ecological impacts on people’s behavior, decision making and experience quality.
“At the height of the pandemic, in the summer of 2020, outdoor recreation visitation within New England national forests increased by more than 60%, or approximately two million visitors, a majority of which came from out of state,” said Michael Ferguson, assistant professor of recreation management and policy. “While it was great to see so many people rediscovering the outdoors and taking advantage of recreation opportunities, it also raised questions and concerns about these already overwhelmed natural resources.”
The extensive suite of research, which includes a study recently published in the journal Society and Natural Resources, assesses the status of the so-called outdoor renaissance at the peak of the pandemic by examining visitation increases and shifts in behavior and decision making at the White Mountain National Forest and the Green Mountain National Forest. While the pandemic fueled visitation issues, these national forests were already seeing significant problems as early as 2017, including social (crowding and conflict), situational (site access and litter) and ecological (snowpack and ticks). During the summer of 2020, resource managers at the White Mountain National Forest commissioned the researchers to take a closer look at these concerns. The results of this study, published in the Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, found never-before-seen visitation numbers resulting in even more pervasive recreation challenges including long traffic lines, lack of parking, trail congestion and unprecedented instances of overcrowding and discord.
However, researchers found for the most part, visitors were largely able to cope and deal with most of the situations they encountered, but the one factor that was consistently difficult for them to tolerate was visitor conflict. This included arguments or disagreements, mostly between in-state and out-of-state visitors, largely based on perceived violations of pandemic safety protocols like not wearing masks or honoring physical distancing.
“Our data and modeling suggest that approximately 10% of annual visitation, which represents nearly 400,000 visitors, noted they would likely never return for outdoor recreation because of the issues they experienced,” said Ferguson.
To validate these initial findings, the researchers took a deeper dive into the impact of the pandemic on outdoor recreation visitors, with a specific focus on historically marginalized populations. This paper, published in the Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, confirmed the huge surge in national forest visitation during the pandemic and explored the significant increase in adverse interactions. The researchers also found that historically marginalized populations stated unique hurdles. For instance, low income visitors reported significantly less substitution options as opposed to high income visitors and female visitors reported significantly higher instances of conflict during the pandemic.
“COVID-19 unleashed a phenomenon that we didn’t anticipate,” said Ferguson. “It really changed the outdoor recreation experience and the manner in which these resources and experiences must be managed.”
Researchers say more studies are needed to determine next steps but hope this extensive research will help pinpoint continued issues and improve the decision-making process for resource managers, elected officials and visitors. The study team also noted that many parks and protected areas across the country experienced similar issues and moved to managed access systems to combat increasing visitation. Researchers are hopeful that future studies will help determine the best solutions for the New England national forest system.
Funding for this research was provided by the USDA Forest Service.
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