PDF: ‘Carrying Capacity of Recreation Settings’. A Literature Review: The President’s Commission on Americans Outdoors

Citation
Stankey, G., and R. Manning. (1986). ‘Carrying Capacity of Recreation Settings’. A Literature Review: The President’s Commission on Americans Outdoors. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, M-47 – M-57.

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Summary
A recreation management idea, carrying capacity, peaked during the 1960’s and 1970’s as burgeoning recreational use raised concerns about appropriate amounts and types of use in the Nation’s outdoor recreational areas. The carrying capacity model provides a basis for examining several important interactions: between supply and demand considerations, between concerns about resource conditions and perceived recreational quality, and between the quantity of recreational opportunities supplied and the quality of experiences derived from them. Over the past 20 years carrying capacity research, coupled with extensive management experience with the concept, has produced many findings that can be drawn into six basic conclusions. (Abstract posted on leopold.wilderness.net)

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