Climate Change Adaptation Strategies and Approaches for Outdoor Recreation

Abstract

Climate change will alter opportunities and demand for outdoor recreation through altered winter weather conditions and season length, climate-driven changes in user preferences, and damage to recreational infrastructure, among other factors. To ensure that outdoor recreation remains sustainable in the face of these challenges, natural resource managers may need to adapt their recreation management. One of the major challenges of adapting recreation to climate change is translating broad concepts into specific, tangible actions. Using a combination of in-depth interviews of recreational managers and a review of peer-reviewed literature and government reports, we developed a synthesis of impacts, strategies, and approaches, and a tiered structure that organizes this information. Six broad climate adaptation strategies and 25 more specific approaches were identified and organized into a “recreation menu”. The recreation menu was tested with two national forests in the US in multi-day workshops designed to integrate these concepts into real-world projects that were at the beginning stages of the planning process. We found that the recreation menu was broad yet specific enough to be applied to recreation-focused projects with different objectives and climate change impacts. These strategies and approaches serve as stepping stones to enable natural resource and recreation managers to translate broad concepts into targeted and prescriptive actions for implementing adaptation.

Covid-19 and outdoor recreation management: Increased participation, connection to nature, and a look to climate adaptation

“…Applying ideas from sustainable trail building may be needed to design parks and near-nature areas for increased use. The science of climate adaptation may be helpful here with consideration of resilience in new recreational infrastructure design ( Halofsky et al, in press ; O'Toole et al, 2019 ). For example, increasing infrastructure resilience can be applied to gateway activity structures, such as picnic/grill sites; designs are needed to serve more people, allow for social distancing between groups while also preserving quality nature experiences of a particular place.…”

“… Beery (2019) highlighted the need for outdoor recreation to be a key part of multifunctional urban landscapes through close to home and accessible outdoor recreation land management efforts as a part of climate adaptation strategy. O'Toole et al (2019) provided specific and tangible actions to detail how outdoor recreation may play an essential role in climate adaptation relative to forest resources in North America. This immediate and long-term role that outdoor recreation may play in combatting the negative impacts of climate change via creative multifunctional landscape initiatives may serve us in our Covid-19 response and planning by providing accessible opportunities for outdoor recreation.…”

Beyond Planning Tools: Experiential Learning in Climate Adaptation Planning and Practices

“…The initial menus focused on forestry issues in rural and urban settings [7,10,20], but continued evolution of the CCRF has led to the creation and publication of additional adaptation menus that include a wider variety of ecosystems and management topics. Published menus exist for agriculture [26], forested watersheds [27], tribal and indigenous perspectives [28], forest carbon stewardship [29], outdoor recreation [30], inland lakes [31], open wetlands [32] and California forests [33]. Additional menus are in preparation and review for other interest areas, including wildlife management, coastal ecosystems, grasslands, and fire-dependent ecosystems.…”

“…Additional menus are in preparation and review for other interest areas, including wildlife management, coastal ecosystems, grasslands, and fire-dependent ecosystems. Menu development varies based on topic and specific authors, but the collation and tiered organization of strategies and approaches is typically informed by review of scientific literature and best management practices, interviews with researchers and professionals, outreach at professional and scientific meetings, iterative rounds of testing and review with managers and formal peer review prior to publication e.g., [27,30].…”

Understanding and managing the interactions of impacts from nature-based recreation and climate change

“…Also unknown is the extent to which visitors will be willing to alter their behaviors to mitigate climate change impacts. A variety of climate change adaptation strategies are available to land managers, including alterations to the setting, educational programs, and changes in visitor access to sensitive resources (O'Toole et al 2019). A scenario-planning exercise in Jasper National Park, Canada, found that a majority of visitors would support climate change adaptation strategies that limited visitation as long as opportunities were not foreclosed entirely (Weber et al 2019).…”