Search

The debate over the conceptual constructs of landscape aesthetics, specifically whether landscape quality is inherently related to landscape physical characteristics or is subjectively “in the eye of the beholder,” has continued for years. Solutions accommodating both the biophysical and perceptual aspects of landscapes are thus desirable for landscape planners and policymakers. In response to policy shifts that emphasise both expert and public landscape perspectives, this study investigates the relationships between formal and informal landscape evaluations. It analyses crowdsourced data describing landscape aesthetic quality (Scenic-Or-Not) and authoritative landscape quality assessments (the Landscape Assessment Decision Making Process (LANDMAP) of Wales). Some agreement was found regarding landforms most likely to be perceived as scenic or unattractive by experts and non-experts, which aligns with previous landscape perception studies. However, contested landscape typologies are identified formal and informal landscape aesthetic evaluations are compared. Several limitations and implications for current formal landscape assessment paradigms (GIS based and vertical) are discussed and several approaches for capturing on-the-ground perceptions are suggested including recent extensions to GIS derived viewsheds (e.g., vertical voxel viewsheds).

The potential supply of ecosystem services is often assessed using land cover data. Assessment of actual use of ecosystem services by beneficiaries remains less covered and is often assumed to be congruent with potential supply. However, we believe that to contribute to the sustainable management of multifunctional landscapes, more insights are needed on the links between landscape characteristics and the various facets of ecosystem services. In this paper, we assess cultural ecosystem services (CES) such as recreation, inspiration or scenic beauty in three European mountain protected areas and their surroundings. We study the alignment between the potential supply and actual use of CES. CES potential supply was modelled using six biophysical indicators derived from earth observation and open geospatial data. For CES actual use, we employed participatory mapping with protected area visitors and local experts. We modelled CES actual use as a function of landscape biophysical indicators, weighted by (i) stated and (ii) revealed visitor preferences, and accessibility in each protected area using generalized additive mixed-effects models. Accessibility alone could explain around 50% of the variability of CES actual use, and with the additional inclusion of the ‘natural and cultural features’ variable, the actual use models reached an explanatory power of around 80% for all three case-studies. Importantly, biophysical information using land cover data alone cannot fully describe CES actual use, and there was little congruency between modelled potential supply and actual use. Additional socio-cultural features are required to explain the patterns of locations where protected area visitors enjoy CES. Our results can inform visitor management by addressing CES actual use and thereby provide evidence for landscape management and conservation planning and management, including offering a rewarding experience of nature for visitors.

Habitat fragmentation is one of the key drivers of global biodiversity loss. In this context, connectivity modelling is increasingly important for effective conservation. Most previous studies on connectivity modelling are based on focal species, while fewer studies focus on models based on landscape naturalness or wildness. We propose a methodological framework for wildland network planning, which utilizes the results from wilderness mapping as input data for connectivity models. The least-cost model and circuit model are applied using Linkage Mapper and Circuitscape, with wilderness areas selected as source patches together with resistance values transformed from a wilderness quality index. Taking the Great Taihang region of China as an example, wildland networks are created and pinch-points are identified. We show that the selection of core patches and resistance surfaces have a significant impact on the resulting corridors. The wildland network could serve as an effective and efficient alternative to habitat network and supplement the protected areas network, especially when the species distribution data are lacking, or a rapid assessment is required. This framework for wildland planning could potentially be applied to fragmented landscapes across various countries to eliminate or reduce the negative impacts of habitat fragmentation on biodiversity.

Biodiversity loss is a social and ecological emergency, and calls have been made for the global expansion of protected areas (PAs) to tackle this crisis. It is unclear, however, where best to locate new PAs to protect biodiversity cost-effectively. To answer this question, we conducted a spatial meta-analysis by overlaying seven global biodiversity templates to identify conservation priority zones. These are then combined with low human impact areas to identify cost-effective zones (CEZs) for PA designation. CEZs cover around 38% of global terrestrial area, of which only 24% is currently covered by existing PAs. To protect more CEZs, we propose three scenarios with conservative, moderate, and ambitious targets, which aim to protect 19, 26, and 43% of global terrestrial area, respectively. These three targets are set for each Convention on Biological Diversity party with spatially explicit CEZs identified, providing valuable decision support for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

Managing disasters caused by natural events, especially volcanic crises, requires a range of approaches, including risk modelling and analysis. Risk modelling is commonly conducted at the community/regional scale using GIS. However, people and objects move in response to a crisis, so static approaches cannot capture the dynamics of the risk properly, as they do not accommodate objects’ movements within time and space. The emergence of Agent-Based Modelling makes it possible to model the risk at an individual level as it evolves over space and time. We propose a new approach of Spatio-Temporal Dynamics Model of Risk (STDMR) by integrating multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) within a georeferenced agent-based model, using Mt. Merapi, Indonesia, as a case study. The model makes it possible to simulate the spatio-temporal dynamics of those at risk during a volcanic crisis. Importantly, individual vulnerability is heterogeneous and depends on the characteristics of the individuals concerned. The risk for the individuals is dynamic and changes along with the hazard and their location. The model is able to highlight a small number of high-risk spatio-temporal positions where, due to the behaviour of individuals who are evacuating the volcano and the dynamics of the hazard itself, the overall risk in those times and places is extremely high. These outcomes are extremely relevant for the stakeholders, and the work of coupling an ABM, MCE, and dynamic volcanic hazard is both novel and contextually relevant.

The UK government has made formal commitments to reduce GHG emissions (e.g. under the Climate Change Act 2008 and subsequent amendments) and to protect/improve natural capital and the environment (e.g. as part of the 25 Year Environment Plan published in 2018). Meeting these objectives requires an integrated approach to two parallel challenges i) decarbonising the energy system and ii) better understanding and valuation of natural capital and ecosystem services. From an academic perspective this involves bringing together two substantial, but rather weakly connected bodies of research, while also acknowledging that this integration in a UK setting needs to recognise the international context (i.e. a whole systems perspective).The ADVENT project (ADdressing Valuation of Energy and Nature Together) has been funded by the UK National Environment Research Council to develop conceptual frameworks and modelling tools which ‘integrate the analysis of prospective UK energy pathways with considerations relating to the value of natural capital’. A methodology has been implemented to downscale the outputs of pathways from national energy system models and incorporate environmental impacts into the assessment of different options. This has required defining spatially-optimised distributions of investments in new energy infrastructure using a range of financial and welfare criteria. These distributions are then compared in terms of their construction, transport and land opportunity costs, as well as the implications for biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, recreation, visual amenity and water resources.This paper will present results from comparing different UK energy pathways through to 2050 in terms of the implications of electricity generation from three types of renewables (bioenergy, solar and onshore wind). The results illustrate that i) individual pathways can vary appreciably in their environmental impacts, ii) overall societal welfare can be enhanced by using spatial modelling to incorporate valuations of such impacts into implementation of pathways and iii) assessment outcomes can be sensitive to modelling assumptions (e.g. regarding the proportion of biomass feedstock from domestic or international sources). More broadly, the results demonstrate how important improvements can be achieved in the integration of environmental considerations into the assessment of future energy pathways at regional and national scales. The approach is now being further refined through the UK Energy Research Centre Phase 4 programme and ADVANCES Landscape Decisions project in the UK, as well as the five-country IRENES project funded by Interreg Europe.

Wilderness protection is increasingly important in the era of the Sixth Extinction and the Anthropocene. Mapping environmental indicators along a continuum of human modification provides key information for wilderness protection. However, uncertainty may occur in identifying wilderness areas by reclassifying wilderness continuum maps. In this study, an approach integrating both Boolean overlay and Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) is used to identify discrete wilderness patches and evaluate their relative wilderness quality. This approach is applied to China with a resolution of 1 km2. The wilderness patches are first identified using Boolean overlay with discrete thresholds for land use, distance from settlements and roads. A Wilderness Quality Index is then created using a WLC model by weighting and combining six wilderness quality indicators including biophysical naturalness, population density, remoteness from settlements, remoteness from roads/railways, settlements density and roads/railways density. An integrated wilderness map is then created by combining the results from the Boolean and WLC models. It is found that China is a highly wild country in parts, containing over 86,000 wilderness patches, with varying relative wilderness qualities, which covers approximately 42% of China’s terrestrial area. About 77% of the existing wilderness patches are not covered by nature reserves, indicating the obvious conservation gaps of China’s wilderness areas. The wilderness maps presented here could potentially support new wilderness protected area designation, connectivity conservation, and monitoring programs. This integrated approach of wilderness mapping is potentially useful for other countries in conducting their own wilderness inventories and developing wilderness conservation policies.

Overview of the PLoS ONE collection 'Rewilding and Restoration'.

Suitable location planning of rural buildings is a complex process to be in harmony with landscapes. This paper presents a multi-criteria spatial decision analysis approach using GIS techniques. The research aim is to evaluate the study area suitability to sustainably site tourism rural commercial buildings with landscapes. The criteria weights were decided by the authors with relevant literatures, regional polices and European Union (EU) directives and experts’ discussion. The results reveal the most suitable areas for siting them, not to find a single suitable solution. They explain the weighting flexibility strengths of the application in the decision making process.

This chapter explores the development of geographic information systems (GIS)/multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) systems on the web and evaluates their utility as mechanisms for improving public participation in spatial decision making. The rise of the Internet and the World Wide Web has created many opportunities for those involved in GIS research. The main experimental objective of the open spatial decision-making system is to investigate the potential of web-based GIS/MCE decision support tools for improving public understanding of and participation in important environmental decisions. In designing web-based GIS/MCE systems for participatory decision support it is possible to draw on a long and varied history of research into decision making and decision support systems. Use of intelligent spatial agents may be important in ensuring new users and those unfamiliar with spatial science and GIS do not use inappropriate datasets and/or analyses.

This study explores how formal measures of landscape wildness (i.e. absence of human artefacts, perceived naturalness of land cover, remoteness from mechanised access, and ruggedness of the terrain) correlate with crowdsourced measures of landscape aesthetic quality as captured in Scenic-Or-Not data for Great Britain. It evaluates multiple linear regression (MLR) and two spatially varying coefficients models: geographically weighted regression (GWR) and multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR). The MLR provided a baseline model in an analysis of national data, exhibiting the presence of spatially autocorrelated residuals and suggesting that geographically weighted models may be appropriate. A standard GWR was found to exacerbate local collinearity between covariates, both overfitting and underfitting the model with highly varied and localised results. This was due to its single one-size-fits-all bandwidth and the assumption that all relationships between the target and predictor variables operate over the same spatial scale. MGWR relaxes this assumption by determining parameter-specific bandwidths, mitigating the local collinearity issues found in a standard GWR and resulting in more spatially stable and consistent coefficient estimates. The findings also indicated that the relationship between some covariates (such as remoteness) and perceived landscape quality varied little spatially, while clear gradients were found for other covariates. For example, naturalness was stronger in the north and west, ruggedness was stronger in the south and east, and the absence of human artefacts was weaker in Scotland and the north than in England and the south. Overall, the study showed that MGWR is more sensitive than GWR to the spatial heterogeneity in the statistical relationships between landscape factors and public perceptions. These findings provide nuanced understandings of how these relationships vary spatially, underscoring the value of such approaches in landscape scale analyses to support policy and planning. The discussion section of this paper considers the MGWR as the default geographically weighted model, assessing the potential for the use of crowdsourced data in landscape studies. In so doing, it illustrates how such approaches could be used to explore both subjective and objective landscape evaluations.

Wilderness has recently re-emerged as a key landscape quality in the public debate in Europe, experiencing renewed appreciation in terms of tourism and nature conservation. At the same time, wilderness has turned into a critical matter of conflict, calling for a better understanding of the public’s varied views on wilderness and the spatial localisation of areas of potential conflict. In this paper, we explore the plurality of existing public wilderness representations combining qualitative evidence from 21 semi-structured interviews with quantitative data from a large-scale questionnaire survey (n = 858) conducted in the region of South Tyrol in the Central Alps. This is complemented with a GIS-based approach to quantify and map the geographic coverage of the different representations of wilderness. Our study reveals three distinct public wilderness representations, i.e. ‘Area with no human impact’, ‘Remote and large area’, and ‘Area where nature can self-develop’, differing in terms of selection and weighting of wilderness attributes. The translation of wilderness representations into maps shows clear differences in spatial distribution, location, and extent of areas with high wilderness quality across the three representations. We further demonstrate the added value of our approach by comparing the results with a standardised, expert-based approach on wilderness quality mapping, finding that the extent of areas of high wilderness quality significantly varies depending on whether the mapping is based on experts' or public's representation of wilderness. We therefore conclude that recognising public wilderness representations and their plurality is fundamental for identifying areas of potential conflict and sustainably managing wild landscapes.

Significant progress has recently been made in developing effective tools for the quantification and mapping of landscape preferences. However, while much landscape planning and decision-making operates at the regional scale, capturing public’s preferences of specific landscapes at scales beyond the local remains a challenge especially in geographically diverse areas. This paper presents a new method for the mapping of landscape preferences at regional scales by combining elements from landscape and ecosystem service research. This makes two contributions to existing literature: First, it advances existing 'generic feature mapping' approaches for extrapolating people’s perceptions and valuations of locally specific landscapes to regional maps using photographic questionnaires. Second, we approach preferences of landscapes from an ecosystem service perspective, specifically identifying i) both the perceived supply and socio-cultural valuation of ecosystem services, and ii) multiple services across the cultural, regulating, and provisioning category. Overall, we argue that these features make it possible to more accurately represent the multiple aspects of landscape preferences at a regional scale. The proposed method can be applied to regions of different size, varying geographical complexity, and for different beneficiary groups. The method is demonstrated for the mountain region of South Tyrol (Italy), located in the Central Alps.

As the size of human populations increases, so does the severity of the impacts of natural disasters. This is partly because more people are now occupying areas which are susceptible to hazardous natural events, hence, evacuation is needed when such events occur. Evacuation can be the most important action to minimise the impact of any disaster, but in many cases there are always people who are reluctant to leave. This paper describes an agent-based model (ABM) of evacuation decisions, focusing on the emergence of reluctant people in times of crisis and using Merapi, Indonesia as a case study. The individual evacuation decision model is influenced by several factors formulated from a literature review and survey. We categorised the factors influencing evacuation decisions into two opposing forces, namely, the driving factors to leave (evacuate) versus those to stay, to formulate the model. The evacuation decision (to stay/leave) of an agent is based on an evaluation of the strength of these driving factors using threshold-based rules. This ABM was utilised with a synthetic population from census microdata, in which everyone is characterised by the decision rule. Three scenarios with varying parameters are examined to calibrate the model. Validations were conducted using a retrodictive approach by performing spatial and temporal comparisons between the outputs of simulation and the real data. We present the results of the simulations and discuss the outcomes to conclude with the most plausible scenario.

We present the results of a process to attempt to identify 100 questions that, if answered, would make a substantial difference to terrestrial and marine landscape restoration in Europe. Representatives from a wide range of European governmental and non-governmental conservation organisations, universities, independent ecologists and land managers compiled 677 questions relating to all aspects of European landscape restoration for nature and people. The questions were shortlisted by an email vote, followed by a two-day workshop, to produce the final list of 100 questions. Many of the final questions evolved through a process of modification and combination as the workshop progressed. The questions are divided into eight sections: conservation of biodiversity; connectivity, migration and translocations; delivering and evaluating restoration; natural processes; ecosystem services; social and cultural aspects of restoration; policy and governance; and economics. We anticipate that these questions will help identify new directions for researchers and policy-makers and assist funders and programme managers in allocating funds and planning projects, resulting in improved understanding and implementation of landscape-scale ecological restoration in Europe. This exercise was funded by Arcadia (as is WJS), a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, through the Endangered Landscapes Programme.

Despite the great potential of mitigating carbon emission, development of wind farms is often opposed by local communities due to the visual impact on landscape. A growing number of studies have applied nonmarket valuation methods like Choice Experiments (CE) to value the visual impact by eliciting respondents' willingness to pay (WTP) or willingness to accept (WTA) for hypothetical wind farms through survey questions. Several meta-analyses have been found in the literature to synthesize results from different valuation studies, but they have various limitations related to the use of the prevailing multivariate meta-regression analysis. In this paper, we propose a new meta-analysis method to establish general functions for the relationships between the estimated WTP or WTA and three wind farm attributes, namely the distance to residential/coastal areas, the number of turbines and turbine height. This method involves establishing WTA or WTP functions for individual studies, fitting the average derivative functions and deriving the general integral functions of WTP or WTA against wind farm attributes. Results indicate that respondents in different studies consistently showed increasing WTP for moving wind farms to greater distances, which can be fitted by non-linear (natural logarithm) functions. However, divergent preferences for the number of turbines and turbine height were found in different studies. We argue that the new analysis method proposed in this paper is an alternative to the mainstream multivariate meta-regression analysis for synthesizing CE studies and the general integral functions of WTP or WTA against wind farm attributes are useful for future spatial modelling and benefit transfer studies. We also suggest that future multivariate meta-analyses should include non-linear components in the regression functions.

Small mountain glaciers have short mass balance response times to climate change and are consequently very important for short-term contributions to sea level. However, a distinct research and knowledge gap exists between (1) wider regional studies that produce overview patterns and trends in glacier changes, and (2) in situ local scale studies that emphasise spatial heterogeneity and complexity in glacier responses to climate. This study of a small glacier in central Austria presents a spatiotemporally detailed analysis of changes in glacier geometry and changes in glaciological behaviour. It integrates geomorphological surveys, historical maps, aerial photographs, airborne LiDAR data, ground-based differential global positioning surveys and Ground Penetrating Radar surveys to produce three-dimensional glacier geometry at 13 time increments spanning from 1850 to 2013. Glacier length, area and volume parameters all generally showed reductions with time. The glacier equilibrium line altitude increased by 90 m between 1850 and 2008. Calculations of the mean bed shear stress rapidly approaching less than 100 kPA, of the volume-area ratio fast approaching 1.458, and comparison of the geometric reconstructions with a 1D theoretical model could together be interpreted to suggest evolution of the glacier geometry towards steady state. If the present linear trend in declining ice volume continues, then the Odenwinkelkees will disappear by the year 2040, but we conceptualise that non-linear effects of bed overdeepenings on ice dynamics, of supraglacial debris cover on the surface energy balance, and of local topographically driven controls, namely wind-redistributed snow deposition, avalanching and solar shading, will become proportionally more important factors in the glacier net balance.

Farmland abandonment takes place across the world due to socio-economic and ecological drivers. In Europe agricultural and environmental policies aim to prevent abandonment and halt ecological succession. Ecological rewilding has been recently proposed as an alternative strategy. We developed a framework to assess opportunities for rewilding across different dimensions of wilderness in Europe. We mapped artificial light, human accessibility based on transport infrastructure, proportion of harvested primary productivity (i.e., ecosystem productivity appropriated by humans through agriculture or forestry), and deviation from potential natural vegetation in areas projected to be abandoned by 2040. At the continental level, the levels of artificial light were low and the deviation from potential natural vegetation was high in areas of abandonment. The relative importance of wilderness metrics differed regionally and was strongly connected to local environmental and socio-economic contexts. Large areas of projected abandonment were often located in or around Natura 2000 sites. Based on these results, we argue that management should be tailored to restore the aspects of wilderness that are lacking in each region. There are many remaining challenges regarding biodiversity in Europe, but megafauna species are already recovering. To further potentiate large-scale rewilding, Natura 2000 management would need to incorporate rewilding approaches. Our framework can be applied to assessing rewilding opportunities and challenges in other world regions, and our results could guide redirection of subsidies to manage social-ecological systems. Mapeo de Oportunidades y Retos para el Retorno de la Vida Silvestre Resumen El abandono de tierras agrícolas ocurre en todo el mundo debido a factores socio-económicos y ecológicos. En Europa, las políticas ambientales y agrícolas tienen el objetivo de prevenir el abandono y frenar la sucesión ecológica. La reintroducción o el retorno de la vida silvestre (“rewilding”) representa una estrategia alternativa a esto. Desarrollamos un marco de trabajo para evaluar las oportunidades de reintroducción en diferentes dimensiones de naturaleza a lo largo de Europa. Mapeamos la luz artificial, la accesibilidad para humanos con base en la infraestructura de transporte, la proporción de productividad primaria (es decir, la productividad del ecosistema incautado por los humanos por medio de la agricultura o la silvicultura) y la divergencia de vegetación natural potencial en áreas que se proyecta estarán abandonadas para el 2040. A nivel continental, los niveles de luz artificial fueron bajos y la divergencia de vegetación natural potencial fue alta en las áreas de abandono. La importancia relativa de las medidas de naturaleza difirió regionalmente y estuvieron conectadas fuertemente a los contextos ambientales y socio-económicos locales. Las grandes áreas de abandono proyectado estuvieron localizadas frecuentemente en o alrededor de sitios Natura 2000. Con base en estos resultados, argumentamos que el manejo debería ser fabricado para restaurar los aspectos de la naturaleza que son carentes en cada región. Todavía quedan muchos obstáculos con respecto a la biodiversidad en Europa, pero las especies de megafauna ya se están recuperando. Para potenciar aún más la reintroducción a gran escala, el manejo de Natura 2000 necesitaría incorporar estrategias de reintroducción. Nuestro marco de trabajo puede aplicarse a la evaluación de las oportunidades de reintroducción y a los obstáculos en otras regiones del mundo, y nuestros resultados pueden guiar la redirección de los subsidios para manejar los sistemas socio-ecológicos.

Mass evacuation should be conducted when a disaster threatens within a regional scale. It is reported that 400,000 people were evacuated during the last eruption of Merapi Volcano in 2010. Such a large-scale evacuation can lead to chaos or congestion, unless well managed. Staged evacuation has been investigated as a solution to reducing the degree of chaos during evacuation processes. However, there is a limited conception of how the stages should be ordered in terms of which group should move first and which group should follow. This paper proposes to develop evacuation stage ordering based on the geographical character of the people at risk and examine the ordering scenarios through an agent-based model of evacuation. We use several geographical features, such as proximity to the hazard, road network conditions (accessibility), size of the population, and demographics as the parameters for ranking the order of each population unit in GIS. From this concept, we produced several scenarios of ranking based on different weightings of the parameters. We applied the scenarios in an agent-based model of volcanic evacuation experiment to observe the results. Afterwards, the results were evaluated based on the ability to reduce the risk and spatio-temporal traffic density along road networks compared to the result of simultaneous evacuation to establish the relative effectiveness of the outcome. The result shows that the staged scenario has a better ability to reduce the potential traffic congestion during the peak time of the evacuation compared to the simultaneous strategy. However, the simultaneous strategy has better performance regarding the speed of reducing the risk. An evaluation of the relative performance of the four varying staged scenarios is also presented and discussed in this paper.

Recent developments in Ecosystem Service (ES) research show a growing interest in the concept of ES bundles for informing the effective management of landscapes. While the supply of ES bundles was biophysically assessed, there has been little research about the perception of ES bundles, neither in terms of their supply, nor of their demand. This research investigates how various stakeholders perceive the delivery of ES supply bundles across different landscapes and how this differs from the ES demand bundles they request. A questionnaire survey (n = 858) was carried out on the basis of landscape photographs with local farmers, local inhabitants, and visitors in the region of South Tyrol in the Central Alps. The results show that the different stakeholder groups identify identical ES supply bundles (i.e. experiential service, life maintenance service, agroservice bundle) and associate each with a similar set of landscape types. Stakeholders, however, differ in terms of their expressed demand for ES bundles. These findings suggest that stakeholders experience different (spatial) mismatches between the supply and demand of ES, potentially leading to stakeholder conflicts in landscape management. This study concludes by discussing these potential conflicts across different landscapes and in the context of future land use and management decisions.

A GIS-based approach is developed to identify the state of wilderness character in US wilderness areas using Death Valley National Park (DEVA) as a case study. A set of indicators and measures are identified by DEVA staff and used as the basis for developing a flexible and broadly applicable framework to map wilderness character using data inputs selected by park staff. Spatial data and GIS methods are used to map the condition of four qualities of wilderness character: natural, untrammelled, undeveloped, and solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation. These four qualities are derived from the US 1964 Wilderness Act and later developed by Landres et al. (2008a) in "Keeping it Wild: An Interagency Strategy to Monitor Trends in Wilderness Character Across the National Wilderness Preservation System." Data inputs are weighted to reflect their importance in relation to other data inputs and the model is used to generate maps of each of the four qualities of wilderness character. The combined map delineates the range of quality of wilderness character in the DEVA wilderness revealing the majority of wilderness character to be optimal quality with the best areas in the northern section of the park. This map will serve as a baseline for monitoring change in wilderness character and for evaluating the spatial impacts of planning alternatives for wilderness and backcountry stewardship plans. The approach developed could be applied to any wilderness area, either in the USA or elsewhere in the world.