Parks and Carrying Capacity: Commons Without Tragedy

About the Book

How much can we use the environment without spoiling what we find so valuable about it? Determining the carrying capacity of parks and related areas is a perennial question whose urgency grows each year as the number of visits continues to increase. Parks and Carrying Capacity represents a comprehensive assessment of the issue, as it:
offers a historical and conceptual treatment of carrying capacity
describes and illustrates research approaches for assessing carrying capacity, including qualitative and quantitative surveys, normative theory and methods, visual research approaches, trade-off analysis, and simulation modeling
examines management alternatives for limiting the environmental and social impacts of visitor use
considers the broader question of environmental management and how the issue of carrying capacity can be applied more generally
discusses how the theory and methods associated with managing the carrying capacity of parks and protected areas might be extended to other areas of environmental management
The book includes a series of case studies that describe research programs designed to support analysis and management of carrying capacity at eight diverse units of the U.S. National Park System, and an additional case study that explores how the foundational components of carrying capacity (formulating indicators and standards, monitoring, and adaptive management) are being applied in an increasing number of environmental and natural resources fields to address the growing urgency of sustainability.

Parks and Carrying Capacity is an important new work for faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and researchers in outdoor recreation, park planning and management, and natural resource conservation and management, as well as for professional planners and managers involved with park and outdoor recreation related agencies and nongovernmental organizations.

About the Author :

Robert E. Manning is a professor in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont, where he teaches park and wilderness management and environmental history and philosophy, and conducts a program of research for the U.S. National Park Service.

Review :
"Examining different approaches that can be used to help analyze and manage carrying capacity and maintain long-term sustainability and creating a unique and comprehensive framework that defines carrying capacity challenges and provides case studies as models for application in parks, protected areas, and beyond." "Over the years, the concept of carrying capacity, so critical to management of parks and protected areas, has been enriched by a host of theoretical and empirical advances. For more than two decades, Manning's work has been at the heart of this progress and has given us the means to understand how values and expectations affect human use of parks and protected areas. Parks and Carrying Capacity is poised to become the standard work on the subject."---David Harmon, Executive director, the George Wright Society "This book is a valuable contribution to a literature calling for increased science-based knowledge about the long-term management and sustainability of critical biophysical and social values for parks and other protected areas. Manning offers a range of practical, easy-to-understand case studies from applied research and resource management that addresses the question, At what point must managers intervene to prevent unacceptable environmental and social impacts by visitors? Policy makers, field resource managers, planners, researchers, teachers, and students interested in the controversy over park protection and preservation versus use will benefit greatly from this provocative volume."---David W. Lime, senior research associate emeritus, Department of Forest Resources, Univ. of MN "Parks and Carrying Capacity demonstrates how applied social science can inform national park and protected area managment. Forging a strong link between academy and practice is increasingly important given the need for rigorous methodologies to analyze problems, identify management responses, and evaluate their effectiveness. Manning emphasizes a framework that will advance adaptive management and engage the public in creating sustainable strategies for our shared resources."---Nor J. Mitchell, Director, Conservation Study Institute, National Park Service