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

作者：Joanna Fidelus‐Orzechowska, Elżbieta Gorczyca, Marcin Bukowski, Kazimierz Krzemień · 发表于：Journal of Mountain Science · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1007/s11629-020-6611-4 · 被引用次数：32 · 研究领域：Recreation, Leisure, Wilderness Management、Wildlife-Road Interactions and Conservation、Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

Abstract 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...