US National Park Research Articles

The Army’s battlefield parks in the US national park system: From grafted branch to poisoned fruit

The first set of parks created by the United States government under uniform administration was a set of Civil War battlefields under the control of the War Department, or Army. The first battlefield parks were created in the 1890s and expanded into a much larger system stretching across the country. The Army developed these parks with visitor facilities and extensive memorials and monuments. In 1933 the entire system was transferred to the National Park Service and became part of the national park system. These units had been sought by the Park Service to expand the geographical and thematic diversity of its holdings. This work explores the creation of this system by the Army and what has happened to these units after their absorption into the park system. While most were expanded and became more typical park units, others were removed from the system, leaving two in their original condition.

Exploring drivers of success in partnerships that support federal trail management in the United States

The use of partnerships with external stakeholders to support federal land management objectives is a common practice amongst government agencies. At the US Forest Service and National Park Service, partnerships provide critical support to each agency’s recreation stewardship objectives. While partnerships help these agencies increase capacity and meet recreation objectives, literature on federal land management partnerships typically focuses on large-scale collaborations and single case studies. Little remains known about how inputs and processes relate to partnership success across multiple individual partnerships to support federal trail management objectives. This exploratory study examines the perceptions of agency and partner managers in a sample of 89 partnerships to support trail work at the US Forest Service and National Park Service. Using linear regression and relative importance analysis, results show that trust, capacity, and interdependence are the most salient factors to partnership success. Furthermore, our analysis reveals a secondary set of factors that should also be considered when attempting to improve partnership outcomes.

Acceptance and demand of autonomous vehicles for long-distance recreational travel: An investigation based on a survey of visitors to US national parks

The study of anticipated changes in travel behavior that could be brought by autonomous vehicles (AVs) has been widespread for commuting and short-distance daily travel, yet little attention has been given to long-distance travel. To address this research gap, this paper presents an analytical model for estimating public preference towards the adoption and use (in terms of frequency and length of trips) of AVs, focusing on long-distance recreational travel (LDRT). The model considers socio-demographics, trip-specific characteristics, in-vehicle time use-related factors, and attitudinal latent variables (AV usefulness, AV concern, driving enjoyment) as potential influencers of AV acceptance and demand. To analyze the proposed model, data were collected from a survey of visitors to US national parks conducted in Summer 2022, and the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was employed. The results indicate that the frequency and length of long-distance recreational trips will likely be higher in the AV era. This draws attention to tourism destination managers not only to manage the tourists’ demand at destinations but also to manage traffic on the roads leading to the destinations. Additionally, the results show that the LDRT demand will continue to rise with the increase in AV acceptance due to the usefulness and potential for several in-vehicle activities offered by vehicle automation, despite concerns about system safety, data privacy, and legal liability. The study also reveals that some travelers will likely miss manual driving enjoyment in AV driving, particularly in unique travel settings like tourism travel, and thus might opt for manual driving options. Based on these findings, we advocate for the timely consideration of induced LDRT, and tourism travel demand generated by AVs—such as provisioning sustainable public transport options to recreational and tourism destinations.

US National Park Service and concession staff perceptions regarding waste management in Yosemite, Grand Teton, and Denali National Parks

Each year, over 45,000 metric tons of waste are generated in US national parks through a variety of means, including park operations, visitation, and other sources. In an effort to address these impacts, the National Park Service (NPS) has partnered with commercial and non-profit organizations to implement the Zero Landfill Initiative (ZLI). The goal of the ZLI is to realize a steady decrease in waste generated in parks, and an increase in materials being sent for recycling. Through this initiative and aligning research, efforts to mitigate waste and recycling issues with visitors is underway; however, to date there have been no attempts to understand the perspectives of those individuals who manage these parks on a daily basis. This study explored Theory of Planned Behavior-based constructs regarding disposal of waste and recycling using surveys with NPS employees and park concession staff in Yosemite, Grand Teton, and Denali National Parks. Results indicate that perceived difficulty and moral norms related to disposal of waste and recycling are significant drivers of self-reported behavior and intent with NPS and concession staff. Generally, concession staff perceptions align with the goals of ZLI more than those of NPS staff. This research adds to the limited understanding of land mana­ger perceptions, and results provide justification for future messaging and trainings that could improve sustainable management of these and other NPS units in the future. Keywords: Park Management; Visitor Use; Recycling; Waste Management; Communication; Human Behavior; Leave No Trace

Untangling roots: Reflections on eugenics, conservation, and US national parks

This essay reflects some of our preliminary research to understand the relationships of conservation, national parks, and eugenics in the United States and how they affect parks today, as well as actions NPS staff and partners are taking to recognize and reconcile these entangled histories. The roots spread wide and deep, and we have barely scratched the surface. We intend this article as an invitation, to ourselves and our readers, to further exploration and reflection.

Implementation of a public use management model in Argentinian National Parks: Lessons learned

This year marks 200 years of diplomatic relations between the United States and Argentina, which has involved cooperation across a wide range of fields, including tourism. In the interest of finding new approaches to improve the capacity of nation­al parks for public use planning and management and develop mutually beneficial ways to deliver higher-quality visitor experiences, the United States of America Embassy in Buenos Aires, the George Wright Society, the US National Park Service, and the Administration of National Parks in Argentina proposed the “Binational Exchange Program to Enhance Visitor Experiences in National Parks” as a co-learning exchange between the two countries. Through a critical review, this article focuses on the application and adaptation of the US Interagency Visitor Use Management Framework for public use management in five national parks in Argentina. The article offers an overview of the framework, summarizes the project developed with the parks, and, more importantly, discusses lessons learned and recommendations for future implementation of the model in Argentina and, possibly, other countries in Latin America.

Enhancing pavement performance prediction with traffic speed deflection data

ABSTRACT Pavement performance modelling is an essential part of pavement management. Past research has shown that a structural indicator can be included in pavement performance models to capture differences in performance between weak and strong pavements. Weak pavements are expected to deteriorate more rapidly than strong pavements, as consistently shown in past research. The work presented in this paper uses the Traffic Speed Deflectometer (TSD) to calculate multiple structural indexes and compares their ability to differentiate between poor and well performing pavements. Historical condition data from the US National Parks pavement network is used in this assessment. Two approaches for calculating the subgrade resilient modulus and two approaches for calculating the effective structural number from the TSD results are compared. The temperature corrected centre deflection, surface curvature index and ratio of effective to required structural number are all calculated from the TSD data. Performance models are developed for two condition indexes and the International Roughness Index (IRI). In all cases, the addition of the structural indexes improved the quality of predictions, and the IRI prediction showed the most improvement from including the indexes. Ultimately, it was shown that the TSD testing results can be used to inform the pavement management process.

Research alignment in the U.S. national park system: Impact of transformative science policy on the supply and demand for scientific knowledge for protected area management

The US National Park System encompasses diverse environmental and tourism management regimes, together governed by the 1916 Organic Act and its dual mandate of conservation and provision of public enjoyment. However, with the introduction of transformative science policy in the 2000's, the mission scope has since expanded to promote overarching science-based objectives. Yet despite this paradigm shift instituting “science for parks, parks for science”, there is scant research exploring the impact of the National Park Science Policy on the provision of knowledge. We address this gap by developing a spatiotemporal framework for evaluating research alignment, here operationalized via quantifiable measures of supply and demand for scientific knowledge. Specifically, we apply a machine learning algorithm (Latent Dirichlet analysis) to a comprehensive park-specific text corpus (combining official needs statements -i.e. demand- and scientific research metadata -i.e. supply-) to define a joint topic space, which thereby facilitates quantifying the direction and degree of alignment at multiple levels. Results indicate an overall robust degree of research alignment, with misaligned topics tending to be over-researched (as opposed to over-demanded), which may be favorable to many parks, but is inefficient from the park system perspective. Results further indicate that the transformative science policy exacerbated the misalignment in mandated research domains. In light of these results, we argue for improved decision support mechanisms to achieve more timely alignment of research efforts towards distinctive park needs, thereby fostering convergent knowledge co-production and leveraging the full value of National Parks as living laboratories.

Autonomous Driving or Teleportation? Travel Time Use, Usefulness, and Other Insights from a Survey of Long-Distance Recreational Travelers

Based on a survey of 696 visitors to US national parks, we found higher preferences for working/studying/reading (+77%), using social media (+63%), and entertaining (+34%) activities when traveling in an autonomous vehicle (AV) compared to a human-driven vehicle (HV). A multinomial logit-based ranked-choice analysis (between HVs, AVs, and teleportation) suggests that while most travelers enjoy spending time traveling by manually driving and/or engaging in activities of interest in HVs and AVs, some would prefer teleportation instead of spending time traveling. The choice of AVs is significantly influenced by preferences for working/studying/reading and eating/caring activities.

Origins and Innovations of Science in the US National Parks: The 2023 Leopold Lecture at the University of California, Berkeley

Origins and Innovations of Science in the US National Parks: The 2023 Leopold Lecture at the University of California, Berkeley

How to define urban park relevance? Examining and integrating US National Park Service and partner views on the goal of “relevance to all Americans”

Park agencies must consider their engagement strategies’ relevance. Urban and local relevance are enduring foci. Agencies thus collaborate with partners serving urban, local audiences to bridge the park-community boundary. Yet, relevance is relative. How, then, can views on park relevance from an agency and its partners be reconciled for a collaborative view of parks’ cityscape contributions? We examined this conundrum within the Urban Agenda of the US National Park Service (NPS), which highlighted the agency’s substantial urban presence, acknowledged urban populations as critical stewards, and sought meaningful related partnerships. Framed with Collective Impact components, we sought to learn from 63 interviews with NPS staff and partners in Detroit, Tucson, and Boston about what “relevance to all Americans” entails. We found distinct differences between the views but that the agency-specific view can contribute to cityscape-wide goals. Detailing these definitions and alignments allows for strategic, scaled planning of related actions.

Evaluating the predicted eruption times of geysers in Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park was the first national park in the United States and is known for its geothermal features, consisting of many popular geysers such as Old Faithful. Geysers are fascinating to national park visitors because their eruptions range from small bubbles to jets of water hundreds of meters high, and their eruptions last from seconds to hours. To help tourists plan their visits, the US National Park Service and other independent groups (such as GeyserTimes) publish predicted eruption times of popular geysers. We hypothesized that the models developed by the US National Park Service are accurate with little discrepancy from our independent analysis, due to park rangers monitoring the geysers constantly and likely adjusting their models over time according to observed patterns and changing conditions underground. In our study, we focused on Old Faithful and Beehive Geyser by downloading eruption time data and conducting statistical regression analyses using linear, exponential, and logistic regression methods, with the ultimate goal of evaluating the accuracy of different statistical models. Contrary to our hypothesis, our results demonstrated that the official predictions from the US National Park Service are variable in accuracy. Specifically, we showed that the predicted eruption times for Old Faithful from the National Park Service and our own regression models are highly consistent, while the official predictions from the National Park Service for Beehive Geyser were less precise than our predictions.

The United States National Park System: Overview, Challenges and Policy Recommendations for China

This article conducts a comparative analysis of national park legislation, focusing on insights from the US National Park System to inform the development of China's emerging national park framework. Against the backdrop of a global conservation movement, the US system serves as a valuable model for China, which initiated its own national park system in 2017. On October 12, 2021, China has formally established its inaugural set of national parks, comprising the Three-River-Source National Park, the Giant Panda National Park, the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, the Hainan Tropical Forests National Park, and the Wuyishan National Park. Encompassing approximately 230,000 square kilometres, these five national parks safeguard nearly 30% of China's crucial terrestrial wildlife species. As China endeavours to enact comprehensive legislation for its national parks, this research aims to contribute to the ongoing efforts by addressing key questions such as the efficacy of the US's "One National Park, One Law" model, the governance dynamics between federal, state, and local entities, and strategies for balancing conservation with diverse land uses. The analysis spans five sections, exploring the historical evolution of the US National Park System, its legal framework, challenges faced by US national parks, and policy recommendations for China. The US experience highlights the importance of establishing clear legal authorities, fostering robust public participation mechanisms, and harmonizing relationships with Indigenous communities. The findings presented in this study aspire to facilitate a nuanced understanding of national park legislation, promoting international collaboration between the US and China for the sustainable management of natural lands and the protection of global biodiversity.

Species‐specific responses to white‐nose syndrome in the Great Lakes region

AbstractWhite‐nose syndrome is a fungal disease that is threatening bat populations across North America. The disease primarily affects cave‐hibernating bats by depleting fat reserves during hibernation and causing a range of other physiological consequences when immune responses are suppressed. Since it was first detected in 2006, the disease has killed millions of bats and is responsible for extensive local extinctions. To better understand the effects of white‐nose syndrome on various bat species, we analyzed summer acoustic survey data collected from 2016 to 2020 at nine US National Parks within the Great Lakes region. We examined the effect that white‐nose syndrome, time of the year relative to pup volancy, habitat type, and regional variation (i.e., park) have on the acoustic abundance (i.e., mean call abundance) of six bat species. As expected, little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) and northern long‐eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis), both hibernating species, experienced a significant decline in acoustic abundance following white‐nose syndrome detection. We observed a significant increase in acoustic abundance as white‐nose syndrome progressed for hoary bats (Lasiurus cinereus) and silver‐haired bats (Lasionycteris noctivagans), both migratory species that are not impacted by the disease. Contrary to our predictions, we observed an increase in big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus; hibernating) acoustic abundance and a decrease in eastern red bat (Lasiurus borealis; migratory) acoustic abundance following the detection of white‐nose syndrome. We did not observe any significant changes after the onset of white‐nose syndrome in the seasonal patterns of acoustic activity related to pup volancy, suggesting that production or recruitment of young may not be affected by the disease. Our results suggest that white‐nose syndrome is affecting the acoustic abundance of certain species; however, these changes may not be a result of reduced reproductive success caused by the disease. In addition, species population dynamics may be indirectly affected by white‐nose syndrome as a result of reduced competition or a foraging niche release. We also found that for parks located at higher latitudes, little brown bat and northern long‐eared bat were more likely to experience greater declines in acoustic abundance as a result of white‐nose syndrome. Our work provides insight into species‐specific responses to white‐nose syndrome at a regional scale and examines factors that may facilitate resistance or resiliency to the disease.

Electric Vehicle Infrastructure as a Driver of the Sustainability Agenda in the US National Park System

Transportation systems within parks impact the ecological environment. Parks typically endure infrastructure and preservation related problems, including unmaintained roads, pollution, road congestion, closed trails, and noise pollution impacting wildlife. Sustainability has been a key priority for the federal government as various initiatives such as Clean Cities and Green Parks Plan have been launched to lower emissions and reduce petroleum usage nationwide. This study investigates the specific opportunity for national parks to utilize electric vehicles (EVs) to lower their emissions and environmental impacts and thereby achieve greener goals. It is critical to understand the challenges that national parks face in adopting EV infrastructure. Likewise, opportunities need to be explored for accelerating EV adoption. Scientific research on the views of different stakeholders of national parks is critical for the adoption of EV infrastructure for sustainable drive tourism within national parks. Therefore, this study investigated how national parks are employing EVs within their systems to uncover opportunities and associated challenges related to implementing EVs for drive tourism in U.S. national parks. This study focused on the supply-side orientation to identify facilitators and inhibitors in technical, legal, physical, social, economic, cultural, and environmental dimensions of sustainability. The study sought to identify how national parks are utilizing alternative transportations systems (ATS) or other sustainable practices, such as EVs, to identify the challenges national parks face regarding implementing EV infrastructure, and to identify opportunities to advance EV infrastructure in national parks. The study revealed opportunities for EVs to be effectively utilized within most park fleets. Adoption will be the consequence of both leadership and park acceptance in addition to the culture towards new technologies. Future monetary savings from fuel and maintenance may provide the basis for exploring and adopting electric vehicles. Challenges included geographic location and terrain along with the lack of sufficient funding to support the necessary infrastructure. Parking was also a concern. Park management is hesitant to install charging stations that may not see usage, leading to customer concerns by visitors traveling with EVs not having a place to charge and visitors with traditional vehicles consequently having one less space to park.

Modeling atmospheric microplastic cycle by GEOS-Chem: An optimized estimation by a global dataset suggests likely 50 times lower ocean emissions

Modeling atmospheric microplastic cycle by GEOS-Chem: An optimized estimation by a global dataset suggests likely 50 times lower ocean emissions

Increasing wildfire smoke has limited impacts on national park visitation in the American West

AbstractAmbient wildfire smoke in the American West has worsened considerably in recent decades, while the number of individuals recreating outdoors has simultaneously surged. Wildfire smoke poses a serious risk to human health, especially during long periods of exposure and during exercise. As such, evaluating whether people modify recreation in response to smoke is important to understanding the public health implications of these trends. Here we aggregate data on black carbon, a major component of wildfire smoke, and recreational visitation in 32 US national parks from 1980 to 2019 to examine how visitors respond to wildfire smoke. We hypothesize that visitor response may exhibit a threshold effect where ambient smoke reduces visitation after a critical level, but not before. We develop a series of breakpoint models to test this hypothesis. The results of these models are mixed, but overall show little to no effect of ambient smoke on visitation to the 32 parks tested, even when allowing for critical thresholds at the extreme upper ranges of smoke exposure. This indicates that wildfire smoke does not greatly alter park attendance. This finding suggests that management actions to protect visitor health during smoke events may be warranted.

Genus-level macroinvertebrate methods limit the conservation coverage afforded aquatic species

Benthic macroinvertebrate protocols, in the United States, have been integral in the implementation of the Clean Water Act (33 U.S.C. §1251 et seq. (1972)). The methods in these protocols are designed to describe patterns of biological water quality and ecological condition relevant to legislative oversight, and require a tradeoff between taxonomic precision and protocol simplicity. The global similarity of ecological and evolutionary responses to the challenges of life in flowing waters, by stream organisms, has greatly facilitated the development and implementation of biological data from freshwater mussels, fishes and aquatic insects into streamlined regulatory frameworks. Unfortunately, the factors that expedite the use of benthic data into ecological descriptions sufficient for regulatory processes (taxonomic generalizations, standardization of sampling procedures to focus on a narrow subset of available habitats) also limit the utility of these methods in the conservation of benthic macroinvertebrate species (the large majority of which are insects). Using simple hypothetical simulations, some examples from a taxonomic and ecological database of one state in the USA (Illinois), and data from a large-scale inventory of aquatic insect species in a network of US National Parks, I illustrate how these methods are limited in their ability to effectively describe ecological patterns relevant to the conservation of aquatic insect species. I identify, challenge, and explore three basic assumptions implicit to the genus- and family-level identification methods widely used in freshwater benthic science, then discuss how the failure of these assumptions may create empirical, theoretical and philosophical obstacles to the interpretation of data and certainly hinder the conservation of species. I offer some hopeful suggestions for improving aquatic insect species conservation that are within the reach of all benthic freshwater ecologists.

Validating the satisfaction with travel scale and measuring long-distance recreational travel satisfaction

The study of long-distance recreational travel is limited, despite its importance in both travel behavior and tourism literature. To aid the literature, this study validates the existing satisfaction with travel scale (STS)—which has been mostly used and validated for commute and daily travel—and investigates the factors affecting travel satisfaction. The data was collected from a questionnaire survey of visitors to US national parks conducted in the Summer of 2022, and a structural equation modeling framework was used for analyses. Confirmatory factor analysis suggested a three-factor structure with two affect-related factors—positive deactivation and positive activation—and a third factor (cognitive evaluation) related to valence and cognitive assessment of travel experience. The proposed measurement scale for long-distance recreational travel satisfaction could be used by tourism studies to investigate the interrelationships between travel satisfaction and tourism satisfaction, which could offer ways to increase the sustainability of tourism destinations. Structural equation model results show that socio-demographics, general travel attributes, trip-specific characteristics, travel-based activities, travel time perception, and attitudes are directly related to travel satisfaction. In addition to these direct effects, socio-demographic and general travel attributes are related to travel satisfaction indirectly through attitudinal characteristics (driving enjoyment and polychronicity). This investigation revealed a few differences in commute and long-distance travel behaviors: mostly the impacts of age, income, and travel duration on travel satisfaction. Based on the study results, it is also speculated that future autonomous vehicles would be a favorable choice for long-distance recreational travelers only if the option of manual driving is possible in those vehicles.

Modeling and forecasting percent changes in national park visitation using social media

AbstractNational parks have tremendous cultural, ecological, and economic value to societies. In order to manage and maintain these public spaces, decision‐makers rely on detailed information about park use and park condition. Many parks, however, lack precise visitor counts because of challenges associated with monitoring large and inaccessible areas with porous boundaries. To facilitate better management, we propose a method to estimate percentage changes in park visitation without using any on‐site visitor counts. Specifically, using 20 national parks in the United States, we develop a time series model for forecasting future monthly changes in visitation based on the volume of social media images shared by visitors to parks. Forecasts are generated from historic park‐level and national‐level photo‐user‐days (PUD) of images posted to Flickr, using singular spectrum analysis (SSA). We further propose an approach for augmenting existing on‐site visitation data collected by the US National Park Service. Our model evaluations indicate that the proposed model that only uses social media data achieves competitive performance to the models which partially or fully utilizes on‐site visitor counts.