Abstract
During the last decades, the use of mountain trails for running is more and more popular. New trails are opened to allow the runners to practice and compete. This form of human impact on the landscape is new as the new trails do not follow the conservation strategies in design and maintenance as traditional mountain trails constructed by farmers, shepherds and muleteers do. This impact of sport events in nature is not measured and we know little about this impact on vegetation, fauna and soils. We surveyed in September 2018 a trail that was opened in September 2014 and was used for four official mountain trail races, and for training by local runners. Our interviews with organizers and users show that 1054 runners passed during the competition days (4 races in 4 years) and over the 4-year period the trail was used approximately 43,800 times by a runner. We measured the current topography and calculated the soil lost. The results show extremely high erosion rates in the sloping terrain, with the highest rates in the north-facing slope, reaching up to 180.29 Mg ha-1 y-1, while in the flat section of the trail soil erosion rates are 107.56 Mg ha-1 y-1 and in the south-facing slope trail 128.93 Mg ha-1 y-1. Our study demonstrates that (i) soil erosion rates on trails can be easily estimated by measuring the deepest trail position enabling fast and cheap surveys; and (ii) that there is a need to establish conservation strategies on new trails to avoid non-sustainable soil losses in the Mediterranean mountains due to the sport activities such as the mountain trail races.
Highlights
Running and biking are popular sports that are growing in participants and social acceptance (Hoffman et al, 2010; Borgers et al, 2015; Knechtle et al, 2015)
New trails are opened to allow the runners to practice and compete. This form of human impact on the landscape is new as the new trails do not follow the conservation strategies in design and maintenance as traditional mountain trails constructed by farmers, shepherds and muleteers do
Our study demonstrates that (i) soil erosion rates on trails can be estimated by measuring the deepest trail position enabling fast and cheap surveys; and (ii) that there is a need to establish conservation strategies on new trails to avoid non-sustainable soil losses in the Mediterranean mountains due to the sport activities such as the mountain trail races
Summary
Running and biking are popular sports that are growing in participants and social acceptance (Hoffman et al, 2010; Borgers et al, 2015; Knechtle et al, 2015). The use of mountain areas for sport activities is not new (White and Schreyer, 1981), but during the last decade it has grown in the number of participants, and the social, economic and environmental impacts have increased (Nepal and Way, 2007). The awareness of visitors and managers in natural parks showed an environmental concern related to the outdoor recreation participation (Jackson, 1986) This is because until recently biking and running were not considered traditional uses in natural areas as was shown by White and Schreyer (1981) for National parks in USA. There has been a strong increase in the number of people that do long runs and bike in natural parks (Knoth et al, 2012) This triggered a subsequent growth in research in sport activities (Chavez et al, 1993; Rochat et al, 2017). This form of human impact on the landscape is new as the new trails do not follow the conservation strategies in design and maintenance as traditional mountain trails constructed by farmers, shepherds and muleteers do
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