Experiencing nature: Human-caused impacts on campus-based nature and bike trails

Keywords: outdoor recreation, trails, environment
Abstract Type: Virtual Lightning Paper Abstract

Abstract

Outdoor recreation on university campuses provide a myriad of opportunities for exercise as well as to create a connection to the environment. Nature and bike trails offer outdoor experiences for the campus community; however, what may be overlooked is the effect on people and their activities on nature. More specifically, the use of the nature trails by both pedestrian and bike traffic can lead to soil compaction, which can result in increased soil erosion and runoff. Additional effects of human-caused impacts include widened and incised trails, the creation of addition and unintentional trails, and changes in trail-adjacent vegetation. On the University of South Alabama campus, a 35-ha area has been set aside as a natural region and contains 4.8 km of official nature trails. The campus also 19 km of bike trails located in another part of campus. What is unknown for both spaces is the how people have impacted the environment. Therefore, this project sought to measure, at 50-meter intervals, 14 variables were collected, including soil compaction, trail incision, trail width, and aspect. Soil compaction readings were taken in a transect perpendicular to the trail, beginning at 1 m on either side of the trail with a pocket soil penetrometer following the standard procedure of taking triplicate measurement and using the average as a single reading.