Recreation Opportunity Spectrum

The Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) was a resource-based GIS model reliant on a
data-gathering process with an initial field component and a subsequent Geographic Information
System (GIS) modelling process. The Recreation Opportunity Spectrum was originally created by the
U.S. Forest Service as a tool to help manage recreation and tourism on National Forest lands within
the U.S. and integrating recreation and tourism with other non-recreational land-uses. This ROS
system was used in to complement the existing Canadian National Park visitor assessment program
the VAMP (Visitor Activity Management Process).66 The VAMP system was activity based and had
problems concerning the uncertainty of how to deal with opportunity assessment.67 The ROS was also
developed in response to the problem of applying carrying capacity as a management tool for national
parks. This system includes both ecological (the idea that the number of people in an area is directly
related to the loss of ecological integrity and biological diversity) and social (the idea that the number
and type of people in an area or at a site was directly related to its perceived recreational quality)
carrying capacity.68 For the purpose of this model “a recreation opportunity is a combination of three
components of individual recreational involvement: activities, settings, and experiences. A recreation
opportunity, therefore, is an activity that yields certain experiences for participants in a specific
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setting.” The ROS focuses on three items where recreation opportunities are concerned: supply,
demand, and diversity.
Supply means “...the type and number of opportunities that can be offered by an agency,
based on the nature under consideration.”70 The recreation opportunity areas can only support specific
kinds of recreation activities based on certain physical, social (encounter), and managerial
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characteristics. Next is the concept of demand, that is “...the type and number of opportunities
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people want. Determining demand can be difficult” Demand for opportunity areas was indicated by
the number of people that use existing opportunities.73 The last item that this study focused on was the
concept of diversity. “The diversity element recognizes that people who come to parks differ in their
interest in activities, expectations, experiences, and preferences of settings. Diversity in ecological
conditions is a characteristic of the natural environment.” The ROS model acknowledges these
different aspects of diversity and uses them to assess recreation opportunities.74
The Recreation Opportunities Spectrum is basically a national parks classification system used
“to...assist national park managers in assessing and managing visitor opportunities.”75 The ROS model
was applied to two sites, Pukaskwa National Park near Thunder Bay, Ontario and Yoho National Park
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in B.C. and provided Parks Canada with a means of identifying visitor opportunities