Assessment of «Leopard Land» National Park and the «Kedrovaya Pad» Reserve landscapes potential resistance to visitor impact

Eugenia Gennadievna Somova, Andrei Mikhailovich Sazykin
2018 Samara Journal of Science  
The paper considers potential resistance of the Leopard Land national park and the Kedrovaya Pad reserve landscapes to visitor impact. The landscapes resistance map to visitor impact for both protected areas has been created based on the materials of permissible visitor impact on the plant communities in Primorsky Region. It has been revealed that the majority of resistant plant communities to visitor impact are concentrated in southern and central parts of the Leopard Land national park, while
more » ... the most vulnerable landscapes are located in the northern part. Relatively stable landscapes occupy 75% of the recreational zone and 94% of the economic zone of the Leopard Land national park that helps to develop tourism in the national park. The recreational use of the Kedrovaya Pad reserve should be strictly regulated due to its status of reserve and high amount of black-fir broad-leaved forests, which locate on 30% of the reserve area. The paper proposes a method for conversion the values of permissible visitor impact from areal to linear scale. It has been identified that the carrying capacity of the planned routes in the Leopard Land national park varies from 10 people per day (with an allowable recreational load of 0,5 people/ha) up to 70 people per day (with an allowable load of 3,5 people/ha) without construction of impact-resistant trails and additional management strategies. The obtained results would be of interest to managers of the protected areas and their goal of carrying out rational tourism.
doi:10.17816/snv201871122 fatcat:y7xu43nenvahlpgrtrlu4mwug4