Trampling Intensity and Vegetation Response and Recovery according to Altitude: An Experimental Study from the Himalayan Miyar Valley

Apollo, Michał; Andreychouk, Viacheslav

doi:10.3390/resources9080098

Cited by 18 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…The very unique characteristics of mountain areas and local determinants, especially bedrock resistance and magnitude of human impact, determine the magnitude of relief change in mountain areas (Leung and Marion 1996;Mihai et al 2009;Monz et al 2010a;Tomczyk 2011;Lepeška 2016;Apollo and Andreychouk 2020; Table 4 Location of analyzed tourist footpath sections and rate of growth of their zones of degradation in the years 1977-2009-2019 (location of footpath sections see Fig. 8).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Degradation of a protected mountain area by tourist traffic: case study of the Tatra National Park, Poland

et al. 2021

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Mountain protected areas are characterized by high biodiversity, which makes it a great challenge for managers to maintain a balance between their use and the stability of natural ecosystems. Maintaining that balance is particularly difficult in areas with high tourism pressure. The expected volume of tourist traffic should be considered at the planning stage of the tourist infrastructure development process. Insufficient capacity of tourist infrastructure can lead to environmental degradation, which is hard, or at times impossible, to repair. In our research, we identified patterns of tourist footpath and road functioning in an environmentally protected area with high volumes of tourist traffic. Data from geomorphologic mapping was analyzed in order to identify tourist footpath and road structures in the Tatra National Park (TNP). Fieldwork was conducted in several stages between 1995 and 2019. Orthophotomaps from the years 1977, 2009, 2017 and 2019 were used to identify and compare degraded zones along selected tourist footpaths. Degraded zones were defined as areas surrounding a footpath or tourist road with a mean width larger than or equal to 10 meters, with heavily damaged or completely removed vegetation and exposed, weathered cover, where geomorphic processes that would not take place under normal conditions are readily observable. The examined tourist footpaths and roads vary in terms of their morphometric parameters. Research has shown important differences between mean and maximum footpath width as well as maximum incision depth for the forest zone versus the subalpine and alpine zones. A lack of differences in these parameters was noted between the alpine and subalpine zones. Research has shown that an increase in the surface area of degraded zones found adjacent to tourist footpaths occurred in all the studied geo-ecological zones in the study period. However, the largest increase occurred atop wide ridgelines found in the alpine zone. Degraded zones may be an indication of exceeding the tourist carrying capacity of a mountain tourist area. Mass tourism in TNP contributes to the formation of degraded zones adjacent to footpaths, whose continuous evolution may lead to irreversible changes in local relief.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Degradation of a protected mountain area by tourist traffic: case study of the Tatra National Park, Poland

et al. 2021

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“…Many authors are concerned with the idea of conducting trampling experiments on different types of vegetation. The background to this research is the question of how to reconcile increasing tourism with a sustainable environment [45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52]. Studies are being done all over the world and scientists try to find what influences the response of vegetation to trampling.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies are being done all over the world and scientists try to find what influences the response of vegetation to trampling. The responses of vegetation to trampling have been reported to be affected by trampling intensity (number of human trampling passes) [15,21,42,45], frequency (trampling passes per time period [24], distribution (whether trampling passes are dispersed or clumped for a particular trampling frequency [53], season [38], weather [37], habitat [17], species [53], Raunkiaer lifeform (i.e., perennating bud position) and growth-form [22], altitude [54], and soil type [55].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of a Short-Term Trampling Experiment on Alpine Vegetation in the Tatras, Slovakia

et al. 2021

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Over the past decades, outdoor recreation in mountains has become progressively more important and as a result human induced potential damage has increased. Alpine communities are particularly susceptible to human recreational activities, such as tourist trampling. Although there are a number of studies that explicitly assess the effects of trampling on alpine communities, they do not reflect on terrains with a rich topography and the presence of more communities in very small areas. In this study, effects of short-term trampling on some alpine communities in the Tatras, the highest mountains of the Carpathians, were studied experimentally. Vulnerability to disturbance was compared among plant communities in terms of resistance and resilience, which are based on cover measurements. With proximity to trampling intensity, we found a significant decrease in plant cover and abundance of deciduous shrubs, lichens, and mosses. These results demonstrate that human trampling in alpine communities has major negative impacts on lichen and moss abundance and species richness. A short-term trampling experiment required several years of community regeneration. Therefore, management plans should discourage hiking activity off paths and restrict recreational activities.

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“…Forest roads create a logistical network that enables the management, protection, and public utilization of forests [1][2][3][4][5]. For these purposes, relevant stakeholders (e.g., forest owners and managers, policymakers, and the public) need and therefore strictly require forest road maps containing precise information about the related network of forest roads (e.g., location, density, category, and quality) [6,7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elevation Accuracy of Forest Road Maps Derived from Aerial Imaging, Airborne Laser Scanning and Mobile Laser Scanning Data

Kardoš,

Sačkov,

Tomaštík

et al. 2024

Forests

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Forest road maps are a fundamental source of information for the sustainable management, protection, and public utilization of forests. However, the precision of these maps is crucial to their use. In this context, we assessed and compared the elevation accuracy of terrain on three forest road surfaces (i.e., asphalt, concrete, and stone), which were derived based on data from three remote sensing technologies (i.e., aerial imaging, airborne laser scanning, and mobile laser scanning) using five geospatial techniques (i.e., inverse distance; natural neighbor; and conversion by average, maximal, and minimal elevation value). Specifically, the elevation accuracy was assessed based on 700 points at which elevation was measured in the field, and these elevations were extracted from fifteen derived forest road maps with a resolution of 0.5 m. The highest precision was found on asphalt roads derived from mobile laser scanning data (RMSE from ±0.01 m to ±0.04 m) and airborne laser scanning data (RMSE from ±0.03 m to ±0.04 m). On the other hand, the lowest precision was found on all roads derived from aerial imaging data (RMSE from ±0.11 m to ±0.23 m). Furthermore, we found significant differences in elevation between the measured and derived terrains. However, the differences in elevation between specific techniques, such as inverse distance, natural neighbor, and conversion by average, were mostly random. Moreover, we found that airborne and mobile laser scanning technologies provided terrain on concrete and stone roads with random elevation differences. In these cases, it is possible to replace a specific technique or technology with one that is similar without significantly decreasing the elevation accuracy (α = 0.05).

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Trampling Intensity and Vegetation Response and Recovery according to Altitude: An Experimental Study from the Himalayan Miyar Valley

Cited by 18 publications

References 40 publications

Degradation of a protected mountain area by tourist traffic: case study of the Tatra National Park, Poland

Degradation of a protected mountain area by tourist traffic: case study of the Tatra National Park, Poland

Effects of a Short-Term Trampling Experiment on Alpine Vegetation in the Tatras, Slovakia

Elevation Accuracy of Forest Road Maps Derived from Aerial Imaging, Airborne Laser Scanning and Mobile Laser Scanning Data

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