Introduction

A growing body of research has documented the potential impacts of outdoor recreation and other activities in national parks and related areas (Hammitt and Cole 1998; Leung and Marion 2001). These impacts apply to multiple components of the landscape, including soil, vegetation, water, and wildlife. For example, visitors to parks can trample fragile vegetation, compact and erode soils, pollute water, and disturb wildlife. Moreover, there are often aesthetic implications of these impacts that can degrade the quality of the visitor experience (Manning et al. 2004). Research and management attention has logically extended from conventional landscapes to “soundscapes,” or the acoustic environment, and includes consideration of aural impacts of human-caused noise.

Return to top

This page updated:  26 December 2009
URL: http://www.nature.nps.gov/ParkScience/index.cfm?ArticleID=343&Page=1

Suggested citation for this article:

Peter Newman, Robert Manning, and Karen Trevino. 2013. From landscapes to soundscapes: Introduction to the special issue. ParkScience 26(3) . Accessed 19 June 2013 from http://www.nature.nps.gov/ParkScience/index.cfm?ArticleID=343.

Page 1 of 7 • Next +