Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
of recreation and tourism phenomena. Coppock and Duffield (1975) acknowledge the
resource base as a precondition to assessing the 'space needs' of recreationalists in that
the amount of land, the activities to be undertaken, length of journey and nature of the
resource help to determine the type of interactions which occur. Clawson et al.'s (1960)
typology (Table 3.3) and its subsequent application to England and Wales (S.Law 1967)
both confirm the importance of distance and the 'zones of influence' of recreational
resources according to whether they had a national, regional, subregional, intermediate or
local zone of influence, using actual distance to classify the resource according to the
'pull' or attraction of each. Law (1967) argued that the majority of day trippers would be
drawn from no more than 48 km away. What Coppock and Duffield (1975) recognised
was that it was not individual but groups of resources which attract active recreation.
At a descriptive level, the relationships outlined in Table 3.3 indicate that the Clawson
et al. (1960) model appears to have an application, where, in a
• 0-16 km zone, many resource needs for recreation can be met in terms of golf, urban
parks and the urban fringe
• 16-32 km zone, the range of activities is greater, though particular types of resource
tend to dominate activity patterns (e.g. horse-riding, hiking and field sports)
Table 3.3:
A general classification of outdoor
recreational uses and resources
Item
User-oriented
Type of recreation area
resource-based
Intermediate
General location Close to users; on
whatever resources are
available
Where outstanding
resources can be found; may
be distant from most users
Must not be too remote
from users; on best
resources available
within distance limitation
Major types of
activity
Games, such as golf and
tennis; swimming,
picnicking, walks, horse
riding; zoos, etc.; play by
children
Major sightseeing,
scientific, historical interest;
hiking, mountain climbing,
camping, fishing, hunting
Camping, picnicking,
hiking, swimming,
hunting, fishing
When major use
occurs
After hours (school or
work)
Vacations
Day outings and
weekends
Typical sizes of
areas
One to a hundred or at
most to a few hundred
acres
Usually some thousands of
acres, perhaps many
thousands
A hundred to several
thousand acres
Common types
of agency
responsibility
City, county or other local
government; private
National parks and national
forests primarily; state parks
in some cases; private,
especially for seashore and
major lakes
Federal reservoirs; state
parks; private
Source:
Clawson et al. (1960:136)
• 32 km or greater, sports and physical pursuits with specific resource requirements (e.g.
orienteering, canoeing, skiing and rock-climbing) exist.
