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There is growing interest in surfing as a recreational activity that may facilitate skill development and improved mental health. However, there remains uncertainty regarding the causal processes through which surfing may improve psychological well-being. With the aim to guide future research, we review potential mechanisms that may underpin the psychotherapeutic effects of surfing. A range of plausible factors are identified, including exercise, water immersion, exposure to sunlight, transcendent experiences, reductions in rumination and the satisfaction of basic psychological needs. Further research is needed to clarify the effectiveness of surfing-based therapies and to establish the relative contributions of the causal mechanisms at play.

Effective management of National Parks requires an understanding of visitors to provide safe and enjoyable visitor experiences. Risk and preparedness of snow-based recreation is not well understood outside of the context of avalanches. This study investigated the risk perception and preparedness of snow-based backcountry visitors in the Snowy Mountains of Australia through the theoretical lens of recreation specialisation. The recreation specialisation index was an appropriate tool for segmenting snow-based backcountry visitors into intermediates and experts along behavioural, cognitive and affective dimensions. We identified an overall low perception of risk and discuss the reasons and implications of this. In contrast, level of preparedness was of a high standard among both intermediate and expert snow-based backcountry visitors. This pertained to pre-trip planning and the carrying/use of safety equipment and trip notification behaviour. The findings provide insights for land managers to enhance visitor safety and risk management for snow-based backcountry visitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global demand for SCUBA diving activities in coastal areas continues to grow. Academic research has acknowledged that SCUBA diving can have ecological impacts. To understand the current state of knowledge this study applied the systematic quantitative literature review method (SQLR) to determine what evidence is available on ecological impacts from recreational SCUBA diving. In total 69 research articles about ecological impacts of SCUBA diving were analysed. This paper explored research trends, geographical distribution of research articles, nature of impact and management recommendations for future practice. The research found that SCUBA diving impacted through diver contact with coral reefs caused breakage, fragmentation and led to disease. 10 coral varieties were identified as impacted including some listed as (critically) endangered or vulnerable by the IUCN. Impacts can be minimized using non-regulatory and regulatory management strategies. We present a novel framework that connects diver characteristics with coral reef impacts and discuss how to apply this framework and guide future studies in this area of SCUBA diving research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landslides along the main roads in the mountains cause fatalities, ecosystem damage, and land degradation. This study mapped the susceptibility to landslides along the Saqqez-Marivan main road located in Kurdistan province, Iran, comparing an ensemble fuzzy logic with analytic network process (fuzzy logic-ANP; FLANP) and TOPSIS (fuzzy logic-TOPSIS; FLTOPSIS) in terms of their prediction capacity. First, 100 landslides identified through field surveys were randomly allocated to a 70% dataset and a 30% dataset, respectively, for training and validating the methods. Eleven landslide conditioning factors, including slope, aspect, elevation, lithology, land use, distance to fault, distance to a river, distance to road, soil type, curvature, and precipitation were considered. The performance of the methods was evaluated by inspecting the areas under the receiver operating curve (AUCROC). The prediction accuracies were 0.983 and 0.938, respectively, for the FLTOPSIS and FLANP methods. Our findings demonstrate that although both models are known to be promising, the FLTOPSIS method had a better capacity for predicting the susceptibility of landslides in the study area. Therefore, the susceptibility map developed through the FLTOPSIS method is suitable to inform management and planning of areas prone to landslides for land allocation and development purposes, especially in mountainous areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rainforests provide exceptional spaces for nature-based tourism activities attracting large numbers of visitors. Simultaneously, tourism activities may create environmental, social and economic impacts that require management in order to conserve sensitive rainforest environments. Rainforest tourism constitutes a travel sector that receives growing interest worldwide. This study presents a timely review of current knowledge and research gaps in a new conceptual model to give recommendations for a future research agenda. Through a systematic quantitative review, the study identified 48 peer-reviewed journal articles addressing conservation and management topics (33), followed by visitor-related research (23), impacts (10), and finally community and stakeholder research (3) of rainforest tourism, published between 1975 and 2019. The majority of research focused on management issues relating to policy development, planning, education and conservation measures. A strong geographic bias was noted with very limited research available for rainforest regions in Africa and Asia. Future research should be concerned with expanding and linking rainforest research across countries, and filling knowledge gaps around visitor monitoring, specific impacts and causes, and the complexity of community and stakeholder involvement in managing impacts. Protocols may need to be established to facilitate the design and delivery of standardised research approaches across the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sea-level rise in response to climate change and global warming severely impacts coastal cities through increased soil erosion and other hazards. Therefore, simulating threats in coastal locations is critical for coastal city management and planning. The Nonlinear Autoregressive Exogenous-Neural Network (NARX-NN) was used in conjunction with the Bruun model and GIS methods to estimate the rate of sea-level rise, develop a coastal erosion model and coastal hazards maps, and simulate a sea-level increase with a maximum speed of 79.26 mm/year , and an average of about 25.34 mm/year , with a 1.48 m/year average erosion rate simulated from 2013 to 2020 along Merang kechil to Kuala Marang in Terengganu state coastal areas. According to the Bruun model, the areas most vulnerable to shoreline erosion are Kuala Nerus, Pendagan Buluh, and Kuala Ibai. Batu Rakit (Reach 1) has the highest rate of coastal erosion, at 28.16%, compared to 16.5 percent in Kuala Nerus (Reach 2) and 19.1% in Pengadang Buluh (Reach 3). The findings of this study might be utilized to build new coastal hazard erosion maps in a GIS framework, which could then be used as part of Malaysia's East Coast zone vulnerability assessment. The findings may also aid in the prioritization of conservation efforts in afflicted areas or the decision to adapt to the effects of coastal erosion. This article presents a methodological framework and an erosion management prioritization system to help coastal managers, planners, and developers identify hazardous zones and improve coastal management plans using geospatial models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]