An investigation into the concept of and factors leading to impact creep and its management

This study defines and explores the nature of impact creep within the context of two contrasting case studies. The methods applied in undertaking this study consisted of a literature review and development and distribution of questionnaires to visitors at Monkey Mia and an interview of managers at Monkey Mia and Tree Top Walk. The project considered impact creep relevant to both public and private facility developments. Impact creep can be defined as a temporal sequence of changes that lead to a site being more developed. These changes confer both negative and positive impacts. Each impact creep situation may be deemed unique according to different tourism situations and attractions. Both Tree Top Walk and Monkey Mia have a history of increasing visitation which has increased the potential for further impacts. Management has responded accordingly and the resultant actions have reduced negative environmental impacts through site hardening and associated developments. The resultant development in turn appears to have contributed to an increased attractiveness for a wider visitor profile. At both Monkey Mia and the Tree Top Walk increasing visitor numbers were not an immediate concern. Generally visitors to both sites are predominantly first time visitors on a multi-destination trip. Visitors to these sites are most likely to visit in family groups or with friends of two to four persons, aged in the 25 to 49 year age bracket. In both surveys there were a higher proportion of females to males. At Monkey Mia, the majority of respondents are from overseas and Western Australia with the lowest proportion from interstate. In contrast, at Tree Top Walk, the proportion of overseas, Western Australia and interstate visitors was fairly even. Respondents were most likely to travel to the respective regions in passenger vehicles and generally stay for short visits (less than a week). The main attraction for respondents was the natural area attraction, i.e. dolphins at Monkey Mia and the Tingle forest/Tree Top Walk at the Valley of the Giants. The Monkey Mia visitor survey was also used to determine if management actions of site hardening detract from the visitor experience and to determine how visitors feel about highly developed sites such as those that contain permanent accommodation facilities and infrastructure. The survey revealed that visitors generally prefer natural landscapes with limited facilities. However, the facilities provided were not seen as being detractive and had no influence on the quality of the visit. Moreover, facilities may be considered as a positive influence because of the convenience they offer. A major difference between the two case studies is that impact creep has occurred according to different policy directives. Tree Top Walk was developed under a management plan that had clear guidelines. Monkey Mia had no management plan and joint management with the Shire of Shark Bay. When accommodation facilities were developed at Monkey Mia, the Western Australian Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) recommendations were ignored in favour for economic returns and political pressure. A notable difference between the two sites, therefore, is that Tree Top Walk has no accommodation facility so the visitation period is short, while Monkey Mia has accommodation which means that limiting visitor use is problematic because as many as 600 people stay in the vicinity of the interaction area overnight. For Tree Top Walk a dispersal strategy in the form of a visitor centre may help to focus attention away from the main attraction during busy periods and during wait times if restrictions are operating due to heavy demand. Because of the potential for increased visitation, crowding, conflicts and reduced visitor satisfaction at Monkey Mia limitations on use may have to be applied. Previous work has shown that use/access restrictions, in the form of a reservation or permit system, may be the best approach

Advances in Computer Science and Engineering

The book Advances in Computer Science and Engineering constitutes the revised selection of 23 chapters written by scientists and researchers from all over the world. The chapters cover topics in the scientific fields of Applied Computing Techniques, Innovations in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Applications and Advances in Applied Modeling

都市における街歩きを促進する複合現実ナビゲーションインタフェースの設計

早大学位記番号:新9248博士（工学）早稲田大

Opportunities for Redistribution and Area Planning in Parks A Case Study at Bruce Peninsula National Park

Some national parks in Canada are experiencing growing visitor numbers and changes in visitor demographics. Bruce Peninsula National Park, located in Tobermory Ontario is one such park experiencing this phenomenon. Increased visitation at Bruce Peninsula National Park is encouraged by the Parks Canada Agency to keep revenue high as these earnings account for up to 80% of a park’s funding (Parks Canada, 2014d). With these changes come problems of out-dated infrastructure no longer keeping up to demand, unknown status of whether social and ecological carrying capacities are exceeded, and issues of crowding potentially affecting visitor experiences. Management at Bruce Peninsula National Park must determine social, ecological, and economic carrying capacities to determine sustainable thresholds and indicators to influence management decisions. One form of social monitoring is visitor surveys. The most important method used to determine whether visitors are feeling crowded is a visitor information survey specifying visitor motivations and expectations. If visitor surveys find demographics of visitors are feeling crowded, measures must be taken by management to combat this problem to retain high visitor numbers. Monitoring ecological carrying capacity must also be employed by park management to ensure ecological integrity is being maintained through increases of visitation. These values are influenced by park zoning, identification of critical elements such as species at risk, and knowing what areas are best experienced at different levels of crowding. The most common and successful techniques used to set and maintain social and ecological carrying capacities and identify perceptions of crowding include setting use levels, area restrictions, and temporal and spatial redistribution. Using these methods at Bruce Peninsula National Park may take pressure off primary visitor nodes, improve visitor experience, and retain ecological integrity. Management at the park must employ these techniques to ensure that the park is managed effectively, ecological integrity is maintained, and positive, high quality visitor experiences are fostered. This thesis will provide insight into best management practices for redistributing visitors to reduce the potential for crowding through area planning at eight visitor nodes; specify most accepted methodologies for issuing visitor caps and carrying capacity limits using indicators and thresholds; reveal strategies that reduce crowding perceptions, including redistribution and visitor expectations, demands, and experiences; and provide temporal and spatial redistribution tactics for management to use to increase visitation while maintaining ecological integrity

Airspace – Zones of Fidelity and Failure

Given our increasing reliance on air travel to function in all aspects of society, it seems imperative to expand our knowledge of airspace and the social relations that air travel enhances and makes possible. My thesis offers a critical analysis of the technical safety systems that support air travel. It finds fissures in the rationality that underlines our belief in the safety and sustainability of air travel and leaves open the question of whether our confidence in this system can be sustained only by the claim that it is inherently rational. According to anthropologists Geoffrey Bowker and Susan Leigh Star, one of the defining characteristics of technological systems that achieve the cultural status of ‘infrastructure’, is that they ‘become visible upon breakdown’. (Bowker and Star 2000, 335) Two real world events - a commercial airliner’s (Air New Zealand 901) collision with an Antarctic volcano, killing 257 people in 1979 and the closure of European airspace due to the presence of volcanic ash (eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland in 2010) expose the fragility of the infrastructural systems supporting air travel. As conditions of exceptionality, these events pose a challenge to aspects of our spatial imaginary, allowing us to understand the contradictory interdependence of trust and risk. Working across media, using video, sound, object making and print, my practice is concerned with the ‘breaking down’ of space. My work reflects my increasing interest in the precariousness of empirically grounded monolithic systems that aspire towards comprehensive totality and stability through their own set of formal logics and structural parameters

Cultural Landscapes in Conflict: Addressing the Interests and Landscape Perceptions of Native Americans, the National Park Service, and the American Public in National Parks

The Prayer and Fasting Project of 2010 from Glacier National Park produced startling results indicating that many areas which have cultural significance to Native American peoples have been adversely impacted by national park recreationalists. This thesis addresses the significance of these impacts along with other management issues associated with conflicting landscape perceptions of national park lands. These concerns are explored through the examination of past and present archaeological theories along with cultural resource management approaches to landscapes. The need to identify and consider different cultural perceptions of landscapes in research and management scenarios is stressed throughout this work. The inclusion of these perceptions is necessary for the implementation of appropriate cultural resource management. This thesis also investigates the possibility of multiple landscapes simultaneously occupying the same space. The foundation of this concept is based on the ability of individual cultures to uniquely identify and experience landscapes as dictated by their cultural perceptions and beliefs. The generalized landscape perceptions of Native Americans, the National Park Service, and the Anglo-American national park tourist are discussed to demonstrate the different landscape perceptions that can exist between cultural groups even when observing the same geographical area. The final aspect of this thesis discusses the effectiveness of indirect management policies to pacify conflicts where multiple stakeholders do not agree on the expected uses of a significant area. In general, indirect management strategies rely upon education and interpretive programs to inform visitors of appropriate behavior towards resources, as opposed to direct restrictions. The indirect management directives found in the voluntary climbing ban issued in 1995 at Devils Tower National Monument serve as the primary case study for this discussion. Although management issues related to national park landscapes continue to be present, it is hoped that this thesis will bring further awareness to these issues while also presenting new ways to address these conflicts and concerns

The value of multi-functional urban agriculture in creating sustainable cities

PhD ThesisChina's cities continue to expand rapidly and under severe challenge of sustainable urban development. The Chinese Government has decided to bring agriculture back into the city in a state-controlled way and to re-educate urban residents to enjoy agriculture activities in urban areas. This research explores the Chinese Government’s approach to new urban agriculture in China. It seeks to better understand and evaluate the impacts of multifunctional urban agriculture on sustainable urban development. The work is set within the context of China’s extremely rapid urbanization and concerns about pollution, poor lifestyles and an over-emphasis on manufacturing as the economic driver of growth. This thesis has presented a first attempt to redefine the term ‘urban’ in relation to urban agriculture, extending it to the urban core areas, desakota areas and exurban areas. In this way it suggests a new typology of urban agriculture in China, with a potentially broader range of objectives and possibilities that might normally be associated with the subject or practice. Taking Beijing as the case study city, this study selects 3 of its 16 districts: Chaoyang, Changping and Miyun representing core, desakota and exurban areas. The specific projects in these three districts are totally different, and together they represent the three levels in the model of Chinese new urban agriculture. Each level of model is informed and supported by case study of practical projects. These are: Government fully-owned large projects, Government-supported privately run projects and Folk Custom Villages. Data was collected from direct observation, documentation, archive, physical survey, interviews and questionnaires. This thesis found that the “Chinese” urban agriculture model, through three different types of projects, aims to make people rethink the role of agriculture and see it not simply as something undertaken by others in a rural area, nor as something simply to provide food. Rather, it can be something which enhances the urban experience, improves the urban environment, offers leisure facilities, engages people in traditional culture and provides a diverse range of employment and livelihood activities. A well planned modern agricultural production is required to create an agricultural environment with reasonable spatial layout to reduce pollution and to create aesthetically pleasing and sustainable landscapes. It can help urban agriculture ii integrate into the city system in a more sustainable way by reconnecting urban life and rural culture. This model, therefore, sets urban agriculture in a central role within planned urbanization. In summary, this thesis suggests that this model could become an important strategy for land use planning, urbanization and the sustainable development of Chinese cities, indeed, all cities, in the future. This study will be of interest to those scholars who are seeking to explore the Chinese urban agriculture as an effective method for land use in sustainable urban development