Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
recreation. This shows is the need to move beyond environmental capacity to recognise
the significance of users, visitor satisfaction and the role of perception—embodied in the
last notion—of social carrying capacity.
Social carrying capacity, often referred to as perceptual, psychological or behavioural
carrying capacity, was defined by Pigram and Jenkins (1999:93) as 'the maximum level
of recreational use, in terms of numbers and activities, above which there is a decline in
the quality of the recreation experience, from the point of view of the recreation
participant'. The basic principles inherent in this approach relate to the ability of
individuals and groups to tolerate others, their activities and the level of acceptability.
Patmore (1973:241) summed this up as 'the number of people [a site] can absorb before
the latest arrivals perceive the area to be full and seek satisfaction elsewhere'. This has
both a spatial and temporal dimension, embodied in the study by Glyptis (1981b). One of
the fundamental concepts here is the extent to which crowding impacts upon visitor
satisfaction.
Developing a carrying capacity for a site involves at least eight steps (Hall and Me
Arthur 1998):
1 Specify management objectives or standards for the state of the heritage resource to be
maintained or attained and the type of experience to be provided.
2 Identify current levels of use for a defined period (e.g. hour, day, week, month, year).
3 Identify indicators for the biophysical, socio-cultural, psychological and managerial
components.
4 Measure the current state of each indicator.
5 Identify apparent relationships between the state of the indicator and the level of use.
6 Make value judgements about the acceptability of the various impacts.
7 Determine a carrying capacity that is more, the same or less than current visitation.
8 Implement management strategies to ensure carrying capacity is not breached.
An example of the establishment of a carrying capacity is the Angkor World Heritage
Site in Cambodia. A capacity of 300 to 500 visitors at any one time has been established,
with an annual capacity set at 500,000, which assumes visitors will make two visits to the
site during their stay (Wager 1995).
The most defendable carrying capacity is an estimate representing a compromise
between individual capacities for each component. For example, suppose there was a
biophysical carrying capacity set at 50 visits per day, a socio-cultural capacity set at 100
visits per day, a psychological capacity set at 80 visits a day and a managerial capacity
set at 90 visits a day. If each component was valued equally, then an overall carrying
capacity may be set at 80 visits per day. However, the typical scenario is one where the
overall figure is influenced by the most sensitive or threatened factor, so in this example
the capacity may be set at 50 visits per day (Hall and McArthur 1998).
Despite the concept of carrying capacity having originated in the early 1960s, it
remains in practice, although highly elusive to successfully implement although it
remains an extremely significant and influential management concept.
It is commonly recognised that there are no fixed or standard tourism
carrying capacity values. Rather, carrying capacity varies, depending upon
place, season and time, user behaviour, facility design, patterns and levels
