How climate change and population growth will shape attendance and human-wildlife interactions at British Columbia parks
研究利用加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省249个省级公园的十年游客数据和五个国家公园的十二年人兽冲突记录，建模天气和人口对游客量及人兽互动的影响，并预测本世纪内两者将因气候变化和人口增长而显著上升，为公园管理者提供前瞻性管理依据。
Protected areas are important for ecological conservation while simultaneously supporting culturally and economically valuable tourism.However, excessive visitor pressure strain operations and risk human-wildlife conflict, threatening the sustainability of nature-based tourism.Thus, park managers need to know what factors underpin attendance and how these might interact to shape future attendance.Using a decade of attendance records from 249 provincial parks in British Columbia (BC), Canada, as well as 12 years of human-wildlife interactions (HWI) records at five national parks in BC, we modelled the impacts of weather conditions and population growth on park attendance and HWIs.We paired these models with climate change and population growth scenarios to generate projections of how attendance and HWIs will change throughout the century.Climate change is projected to result in more precipitation and higher temperatures, and, over this same time span, BC's population is expected to grow substantially.Based on the observed relationship between attendance and weather, parks should anticipate a marked rise in visitors and HWIs, especially during their respective peak seasons.These projections provide park managers with the information required for proactive management, ultimately contributing to the sustainability of recreation and tourism in protected areas.