Anza Borrego Desert State Park - California State Parks - State of ...

Final Report – October 2001
How Do Visitors View the Acceptability of Ecological,
Managerial and Social Conditions Within the Park?
In addition to the information gathered to this point, managers are interested in the
specific reactions of Park visitors when presented with a range of conditions that might
be found within the Park. The issues presented were:
1. Off-road use, vegetation loss – Coyote Canyon
2. Crowding, solitude – Blair Valley, Fish Creek
3. Trail standards – Borrego Palm Canyon, Mountain Palm Springs
The Photo Series
For the last set of questions in the survey, six images were used to measure the
acceptability of a range of ecological or managerial conditions. To do this in a
meaningful way, UM researchers worked with Park staff to produce a possible
progression of scenarios depicting a reasonable scope of conditions. In Coyote Canyon,
the photo set portrayed a range of vegetation loss due to off-road vehicle use (Panel 1).
For Blair Valley and Fish Creek survey locations, a similar photo collection was used
depicting a range from solitude to highly crowded conditions (Panels 2 and 3). For
Mountain Palm Springs and Borrego Palm Canyon, the photo series depicted a
continuum of trail conditions spanning low use and low standard, to very high use, the
trail signed and paved (Panes 4 and 5). Respondents at each site were asked to judge
the acceptability of the six photos along a nine-point scale, from –4 (very unacceptable)
to +4 (very acceptable), with a neutral zero point.
The photos used in each of the three sets were artificially enhanced by computer. An
original photo was scanned for each photo set and then elements were added, removed,
or otherwise manipulated in order to create the effect. For example, in the Coyote
Canyon photo set, Photo 1 is the original image, with a sign removed for simplicity. All
other characteristics in the subsequent photos in that set were airbrushed or otherwise
manipulated to depict increasing levels of vegetation loss and impacts associated with
off-road vehicle use. For Blair Valley and Fish Creek, the original image is Photo 6, with
other photos showing a progression of more campers, from none in Photo 1 to extremely
crowded conditions in Photo 6. In the photo set for Borrego Palm Canyon and Mountain
Palm Springs, Photo 5 is the original, with more or less trail development and
maintenance portrayed in the other photos.
Acceptability of Vegetation Loss at Coyote Canyon
We used two different methods to evaluate the visitors’ responses to the photo series of
questions. First, the mean of the responses for both fall and spring were plotted for each
of the photos. A positive mean score indicates that the conditions represented in the
photo were acceptable, while a negative mean score suggests that the conditions
represented in the photo were unacceptable to most visitors who participated in the
study. Second, we evaluated the 50 th percentile of respondents and the photo in the
series where they shifted from “acceptable” to “unacceptable” (Tables 37 and 38)
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