Environmental Geography Seminar 11/13

Dear all,

Good afternoon.

This is an announcement of the upcoming Environmental Geography Seminar.

There will be 4 presenters. Two will do their paper review, and two students will present their study progress.

Please see all the details carefully below.

【Date】13 November. Wed. （Time: 15:00~）

【Place】 D201

【Content】

Presenters

(1). Ke Jian (Paper review)

Title: Hiking trails and tourism impact assessment in protected area: Jiuzhaigou Biosphere Reserve, China
Authors: WENJUN LI, XIAODONG GE and CHUNYAN LIU
Journal: Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (2005) 108: 279–293
Abstract: More and more visitors are attracted to protected areas nowadays, which not only bring about economic increase but also seriously adverse impacts on the ecological environment. In protected areas, trails are linkage between visitors and natural ecosystem, so they concentrate most of the adverse impacts caused by visitors. The trampling problems on the trails have been received attentions in the tremendous researches. However, few of them have correlated the environmental impacts to trail spatial patterns. In this project, the trails were selected as assessment objective, the trampling problems trail widening, multiple trail, and root exposure were taken as assessment indicators to assess ecological impacts in the case study area Jiuzhaigou Biosphere Reserve, and two spatial index, connectivity and circularity, were taken to indicate the trail network spatial patterns. The research results showed that the appearing frequency of the trampling problems had inverse correlation with the circularity and connectivity of the trail network, while the problem extent had no correlation with the spatial pattern. Comparing with the pristine trails, the artificial maintenance for the trails such as wooden trails and flagstone trails could prohibit vegetation root from exposure effectively. The research finds will be useful for the future trail design and tourism management.

(2) Yutaro Takada (Paper review)

Title: Analysing hiker movement patterns using GPS data: Implications for park management
Authors: Meijles, E.; de Bakker, M.; Groote, P.; Barske, R.
Journal: Computers, Environment and Urban Systems 47 (2014) 44–57
Abstract: In natural areas, park management organisations need to cater for economic, environmental, recreation and social demands and values. However, multifunctional land use also creates conflicts. Increased numbers of people using an area could exceed its ecological carrying capacity. The recreational quality of areas could be negatively impacted by conflicts in recreational behaviour. Therefore, park managers require spatio-temporal data on visitor flows, but there appears to be a shortage of suitable visitor data. If there are data available, these often do not deliver the information required by managers and there is little guidance on appropriate monitoring variables. This paper therefore combines user movement analysis with environmental and ecological factors for natural resource management. Through a case study we describe the entire working process from field data acquisition to usable park management information. GPS and itinerary data from 138 visitors to the Drents-Friese Wold National Park (the Netherlands) were collected to estimate visitor densities and distribution patterns within the park. Data acquisition is efficient in the working process, but careful error handling is a time consuming but necessary part of it. We introduce the definition of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ errors to make spatial analysis more flexible. We show that walking speed, trip time and spatial distributions varied between park visitor groups. Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analysis showed that factors such as the presence of marked trails, distance to facilities but not land use (such as forest or arable land) explained visitor distributions. Patterns differ between respondent groups based on group size and composition, which is also true for itinerary variables such as walking speed and trip time. The combination of high resolution location data with itinerary information from respondents provides a good impression of the different walking preferences of different respondent groups. We conclude therefore that combining GPS data with itinerary information is a useful tool in profiling different natural park visitors. This is useful information for park managers in steering tourists and in catering for different visitor demands in natural parks.

(3) Michinobu Namatame (Study progress)

Title: 藻琴川流域の農地圃場を事例とした土壌侵食の発生要因分析と空間分布特性の解明
(Factor analysis of soil erosion and understanding of spatial distribution characteristics in farmland in the Mokoto River basin)
Abstract: 藻琴川流域に広がる農業地帯は北海道オホーツク地域の食料生産に恩恵をもたらしている。下流域には古くからヤマトシジミやワカサギなどの漁業が行われている藻琴湖、上流域には標高1000mの藻琴山が位置している。そして、広大な農業地域を有した当流域では、麦や馬鈴薯の高い生産性でも知られているが、収穫後の降雨と融雪作用によって圃場の土壌侵食に悩まされてきた。そこに付随するかのように大量の濁水が藻琴湖に流入し、湖底の浅化現象や富栄養化現象が確認されている。浅化現象は藻琴湖に生息する水産資源にとって深刻な課題となりうる。特に2016年は多くの台風による大雨で甚大な農場の侵食被害が流域各地で発生し、収穫数の減少、侵食を受けた圃場の改修作業など経済的にも大きな損害をもたらした。今後は異常気象を考慮した農業の保全対策を総合的な視点を用いて流域全体で講じる必要がある。そこで、本研究の目的は以下の2点とした。1. 流域内において土壌侵食を受けた農地分布の地理的特性を明らかにすること。2. 圃場の土壌侵食を誘発させる地形的要因を明らかにすること。 2016年における農地の土壌侵食はGoogleEarthProを用いて確認し、航空写真を基に侵食の発生箇所にマーキングした。（福本昌人、進藤惣治2016）その後、自然地理条件また人文地理条件を各侵食の発生箇所で抽出し、各要素と圃場侵食との関係を空間統計法を用いて明らかにする。ここでの研究は農地で発生する土壌侵食に対する対策をより推進することを第一の目的としており、オホーツク管内の農業発展に貢献するためのものである。

(4) Xiao Juan (Study progress)

Title: Assessment of long-term land cover change in three nature reserves of Dongting Lake area, China

2. Note this:

Please send me detailed information about your presentation at least 5 days before your turn.

For a paper review: title and author of the paper, journal name, which volume, pages, also the link (if possible) should be provided.

If a paper written in Japanese is going to be presented, please kindly send me the information both in Japanese and English.

【Notice】

※ In case you are absent from the seminar or late for the seminar, please contact Professors or me in advance. Any absence without permission is not allowed;

※ Please be punctual (very important);

※ Please do your full preparation for the seminar;

※ Your active participation is always appreciated;

※ Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments.

Best Wishes & Regards.

Sun