Recreational impacts on a managed lake shore

Abstract

Recreational impacts on a managed lake shore park were studied over a period of two years (April 1979 to April 1981). Since the park is still in its developmental stages, influences from factors other than recreational activities were also investigated and compared with those from recreational activities. The intensity of recreational pressure was estimated from monthly visitor counts at weekends. These have given a fair picture of the temporal and spatial variations of the pressure. Impacts were studied using simple ecological methods with the amount of vegetation cover and bare ground, and some soil properties being used as indicators. Constructional works from developmental activities such as the installation of an irrigation system and electric barbecues had great impacts on the recreation area. Complete removal of vegetation was common, and the expansion of bare ground was greatly accelerated when development took place in the season of heaviest visitor use. Changes in climate, particularly rainfall and evaporation, were also important in causing variations to the recreation area. Dry summers caused large scale drying of the vegetation while dry autumns did not allow recovery. Seasonal changes appeared to be the primary factor of influence on this area. A characteristic of recreational use in Canberra is that heaviest visitor use occurs in the hottest months of the year, during which evaporation losses are highest. The consequence of this on thestudy area was a greater removal of dry vegetation, leading to a faster rate of expansion of bare ground. The overall result of this was that the natural recovery cycle of the vegetation was disrupted, and recovery had to be assisted articificially. In this situation, it appeared that the impacts of recreational activities are only secondary to the effects of seasonal conditions. An irrigation system was installed during the second year of this study. Irrigation rectified the effect of adverse seasonal conditions and reduced the impact of heavy recreational pressure. Irrigation when controlled carefully will enable a sustained growth of the vegetation to provide protection to the ground surface and give amenity to the recreation area. Management is becoming more important especially in areas designed for intensive recreation. However, very little information is available on managed sites for informal recreation. This study has attempted to provide some preliminary information and to stimulate further research in this area.