Approaches to estimating pathway erosion on theCoast Walk, Royal National Park, New South Wales

摘要

Natural area conservation has become more challenging with the worldwide growth in tourism. Increasing numbers of visitors lead to trampling of vegetation and soils with accompanying erosion and adverse ecological impacts. Although visitors accelerate erosion rates and can cause ecological damage, visitor amenity is in turn negatively affected by eroded pathways. Effective and timely management intervention requires information on which to act but conducting detailed track deterioration assessments places heavy demands on data sources and/or skills of personnel. A simple indicator of track erosion may provide a workable interim measure. In a preliminary investigation along the Coast Walk in Royal National Park, twenty sites were selected and assessed within a three-category erosion severity classification which included visitor-generated deterioration. Erosion losses were estimated using measured cross-sectional area and a soil erosion model. We found reasonable convergence between the erosion sever- ity classification and results from the cross-sectional area and erosion model, although both needed interpretation of outlying data. A measure of maximum erosion depth emerged as the simplest general indicator of erosion loss. This indicator also places the least demand on personnel and data resources, an important consideration for budget-challenged park manag- ers tasked with simultaneously providing environmental protection and visitor amenity.