Off-road Vehicle Recreation Research Articles

Influence of off-road vehicle trails on small mammal community structure in western Maryland

AbstractTo minimize risks associated with off-road vehicle use, agencies often designate areas for off-road vehicle recreation; however, this can concentrate impacts. Trails can cause a change in habitat structure and may divide home ranges. Our objective was to survey small mammal populations along a newly established trail to determine whether small mammals were more impacted by changes to habitat structure or the creation of a barrier. Transects established along the trail were trapped to quantify small mammal community structure. Nine species were captured, with Peromyscus spp. being the most abundant. Peromyscus spp. abundance was significantly greater at the immediate trail edge than in the forest interior. Edge effects on habitat structure extended 50 m into the interior but did not appear to affect abundances significantly. Our study suggests that the trail edge itself is more important than the associated habitat change in driving changes to small mammal abundance.

Managing the St. Anthony Sand Dunes: Rural resident support for off-road vehicle recreation development

Increased participation in recreational activities on public lands challenges land managers to maintain the integrity of landscapes and meet the needs of recreationists. Off-road vehicle (ORV) recreation is an increasingly-popular recreational activity that can offer social and economic benefits, but can also negatively impact the environment. As popularity of ORVs continues to grow, many land management agencies are pursuing strategies to mitigate associated conflicts. However, ORV studies have been scant in recent years. The research presented here addresses the lack of knowledge on ORV area management by exploring local resident and recreationist perspectives about future development in a popular Idaho ORV recreation area. Results indicate that support was influenced by three primary factors: 1) views that increased visitation might change local Dunes culture, 2) concerns that developments might allow government agencies to eventually over-regulate the Dunes, and 3) a desire to ensure that Dunes management decision-making is transparent and inclusive of local residents. We conclude by discussing management actions that land managers could implement to advance management of ORV recreation areas. Management implicationsOur results suggest that local community member perspectives about future development of ORV areas are influenced by the ways that management actions may affect existing recreation culture, concerns about future regulation, and how well local perspectives are reflected in the management process. Findings suggest that managers could:●Organize local stakeholder advisory groups that would allow stakeholders to help evaluate new safety or crowding regulations, develop alternatives for travel management plans and outline resource values.●Utilize a Limits of Acceptable Change process to improve trust in and transparency surrounding recreation management decisions. That process could develop indicators and standards for site-specific elements of crowding, safety concerns, and degradation that may be particularly salient in ORV areas.●Explore the power of local recreation culture to motivate development or enforcement of recreation regulations ensuring rider safety or reducing crowding. This includes initiating new riders to area norms through orientation rides.

Group Characteristics Influence Distribution Patterns of Off-Road Vehicle Recreation within a Complex Trail System in Southwest Idaho

ABSTRACTRecreation on public lands is growing and is increasingly recognized as an ecosystem service providing improved health, connection to nature, and social time while also disturbing and degrading ecosystems. Human impacts must be managed, but often managers have little information about the factors that affect recreation patterns. We combined data from global positioning system receivers to record off-road vehicle (ORV) travel with a pretrip survey to determine how group characteristics, site experience, site knowledge, and motivation are associated with ORV trip patterns on public lands in southwest Idaho. Spatial and temporal extent and distribution could summarize most variation in ORV trips. Both trip distribution and extent were associated with group characteristics and site knowledge. Spatial and temporal extent was additionally associated with motivations and distribution was associated with riding experience. These findings can help land managers to identify use patterns, direct informational programs, and effect indirect management strategies.

Wild Carpathia Future Development: From Illegal Deforestation to ORV Sustainable Recreation

Romanian Wild Carpathia constitutes the ultimate pristine wilderness of the old European continent. Carpathian Mountains landscape experiences and outdoor recreation represents quite unique cultural ecosystem services. The new annotations to the Forest Law are restricting any public access in the woods without authorities’ pre-approval for organised sport, leisure and tourism activities. However, off road vehicle (ORV) recreation is a popular activity and a growing transparency concern of National Forest Administration Authorities that is not managed accordingly. Here we show that our ORV recreation frame model can securely allow public access and protect all Romanian mountains. Our results demonstrate how growing ORV recreation popularity can be used in an honest and open way if it is well organized and controlled. We anticipate our assay to be a starting point for a regional and national forest administration sustainable development plan. Furthermore, stopping illegal forest activities is a major target of the anti-logging movement. A well-defined assay for the ORV recreation frame model will be relevant for such developments.

Health effects following subacute exposure to geogenic dust collected from active drainage surfaces (Nellis Dunes Recreation Area, Las Vegas, NV).

The specific health effects of direct inhalation of fine minerogenic dusts generated by natural soil surfaces remain poorly known and relatively little researched. To learn more about this exposure and its contribution to human health effects, we surveyed surface sediment and characterized dust from the Nellis Dunes Recreation Area (NDRA) in Clark County, Nevada, a popular off-road vehicle (ORV) recreational site. Dry drainage systems at NDRA are commonly used as natural trail systems for ORV recreation; these surfaces also are characterized by high concentrations of heavy metals. Geogenic dust with a median diameter of 4.05μm, collected from drainage surfaces at NDRA contained a total elemental concentration of aluminum (79,651μg/g), vanadium (100μg/g), chromium (54μg/g), manganese (753μg/g), iron (33,266μg/g), cobalt (14μg/g), copper (37μg/g) zinc (135μg/g), arsenic (71μg/g), strontium (666μg/g), cesium (15μg/g), lead (34μg/g), and uranium (54.9μg/g). Adult female B6C3F1 mice exposed via oropharyngeal aspiration to 0.01-100mgdust/kg body weight, four times, a week apart, for 28-days, were evaluated for immuno- and neurotoxicological outcomes 24h after the last exposure. Antigen-specific IgM responses were dose-responsively suppressed at 0.1, 1.0, 10 and 100mg/kg. Splenic lymphocytic subpopulations, hematological and clinical chemistry parameters were affected. In brain tissue, antibodies against NF-68, and GFAP were not affected, whereas IgM antibodies against MBP were reduced by 26.6% only in the highest dose group. A lowest observed adverse effect level (LOAEL) of 0.1mg/kg/day and a no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) of 0.01mg/kg/day were derived based on the antigen primary IgM responses after subacute exposure to this geogenic dust.

Oxidative stress and lung pathology following geogenic dust exposure.

This study was designed to evaluate markers of systemic oxidative stress and lung histopathology following subacute exposure to geogenic dust with varying heavy metal content collected from a natural setting prone to wind erosion and used heavily for off-road vehicle recreation. Adult female B6C3F1 mice were exposed to several concentrations of dust collected from seven different types of surfaces at the Nellis Dunes Recreation Area in Clark County, Nevada, designated here as CBN 1-7. Dust representing each of the seven surface types, with an average median diameter of 4.2 μm, was selected and administered via oropharyngeal aspiration to mice at concentrations from 0.01 to 100 mg of dust kg(-1) of body weight. Exposures were given four times spaced a week apart over a 28 day period to mimic a month of weekend exposures. Lung pathology was evaluated while plasma markers of oxidative stress included levels of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, superoxide dismutase, total antioxidant capacity and total glutathione. Overall, results of these assays to evaluate markers of oxidative stress indicate that no single CBN surface type was able to consistently induce markers of systemic oxidative stress at a particular dose or in a dose-response manner. All surface types were able to induce some level of lung inflammation, typically at the highest exposure levels. These data suggest that dust from the Nellis Dunes Recreation Area may present a potential health risk, but additional studies are necessary to characterize the full extent of health risks to humans. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Spatial and environmental patterns of off-road vehicle recreation in a semi-arid woodland

Outdoor recreation is a widely recognized cultural ecosystem service. Ensuring that appropriate, high quality recreation opportunities are available requires, among other factors, knowledge of the environmental preferences of recreation users and spatial indicators of where those environmental features exist on the landscape and offer the potential to meet recreation goals. Diverse types of outdoor recreation exist, and different forms of recreation may be associated with different environmental features. The focus of this study is off-road vehicle (ORV) recreation. We demonstrate how readily available spatial environmental datasets, including high resolution image data provided within GoogleEarth, can be used to develop a cost-effective, objective indicator of ORV recreation across a landscape, which can inform management to provide desired recreation opportunities while protecting ecologically sensitive areas.ORV recreational tracks were delineated from GoogleEarth imagery throughout our study area in the Great Western Woodlands of Western Australia. In this region, ORV use is a popular recreation activity and a growing concern of conservation organizations, but is not yet actively managed. Most recreational ORV tracks in the study area are informal and user-created. Mapped ORV recreation tracks were used to model and map the environmental associations of ORV recreation. The pattern of existing tracks indicated associations between recreation and noteworthy environmental amenities in the study area such as the shores of salt lakes and rock outcrops with high ecological and cultural value. However, one of the most important determinants of ORV track presence was accessibility, especially proximity to a road. Access infrastructure, such as proximity to roads, is often used to proxy demand and use in expert-based spatial assessments of ecosystem services. The results of our empirical model underscore the importance of incorporating patterns of both supply (i.e., desired natural amenities) and demand (i.e., access) into ecosystem service assessments. In addition, when integrated with maps of environmental sensitivity and more detailed information about human use, the predictive map of areas providing potential recreation experiences can be used for comprehensive spatial planning of sustainable ORV recreation. One possibility suggested by our results is that careful planning and management of access routes may be an effective means to achieve sustainable ORV recreation.

Understanding and managing the off-road vehicle experience: standards of quality

A companion paper in a previous issue of Managing Leisure suggested that crowding, litter, and waiting time to get a use permit were among the variables important in defining a high-quality off-road vehicle (ORV) experience at Cape Cod National Seashore (Cape Cod). Potential standards of quality – the minimum acceptable condition for these indicator variables – are addressed in this paper. Data to help formulate standards were collected during the 2005 summer-use season by asking visitors to evaluate narrative/numeric questions describing a range of visitor-caused impacts or photographic simulations depicting such impacts. Responses to survey questions suggest that between 12.0 and 33.2 ORVs per 0.16 km are appropriate for the ORV route, depending on what evaluative dimension (i.e., ‘preference’, ‘acceptability’, ‘management action’, or ‘displacement’) is considered. Maximum litter densities of 4.0–56.8 pieces of litter per 225 m2 area and a maximum waiting time to receive an ORV-use permit of 58 min to 11 h, 37 min are appropriate, again depending on the evaluative dimension considered. The normative data developed in this study can be used to help formulate standards of quality, enhance understanding of the ORV experience, and guide the management of high-quality ORV recreation.

Off-road vehicle recreation management policy for public lands in the United States: A case history

Three annual motorcycle races on the Johnson Valley-Parker course in California's Mojave Desert have resulted in conspicuous modifications of soil and vegetation in a Wilderness Study Area (WSA) and in other lands of high resource values. The extent of damage caused by the races, which have involved fewer than 400 participants, exceeded the expectations of the managing agency by 360%–640% and the allowable limits imposed by the agency by 40%–76%. After three races, no resource monitoring results have been obtained by which compliance with the regulations for interim management of the Wilderness Study Area may be judged. Designation of the remaining parts of the course on lands of high resource value was based on criteria subsequently determined by a federal court to be in violation of regulations derived from two Executive Orders.

Origin of Mojave Desert dust plumes photographed from space

Six dust plumes, arising from a Santa Ana wind and covering an area of 1,700 km 2 of the western Mojave Desert, were photographed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration LANDSAT/ERTS-1 satellite on January 1,1973. The cause of the erosion was identified as man9s destabilization of the natural surface through road-building, agriculture, urbanization, stream-channel modification, and off-road vehicle recreation. The extensive, and growing, destabilization of the California desert surface provides for ever-increasing dust yield in storms of the future.