Can Recreation and Conservation Co-exist? A Case Study of Shing Mun Country Park

CHEUNG Ka-Kui

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy in Geography

©The Chinese University of Hong Kong June 2004

The Chinese University of Hong Kong holds the copyright of this thesis. Any person(s) intending to use a part or whole of the materials in the thesis in a proposed publication must seek copyright release from the Dean of the Graduate School. ^^SH'BRARY SYSTEMy^ Abstract

Thesis entitled: Can Recreation and Conservation Co-exist? A Case Study of Siting Mun Country Park Submitted by Cheung Ka Kui for the degree of Master of Philosophy at The Chinese University of Hong Kong in June 2004

The designation of country parks in Hong Kong not only conserves wildlife, but also provides opportunities for outdoor recreation. However, these two objectives seem to be conflicting. To facilitate a better and more appropriate park management practice, it is necessary to understand the spatial patterns and characteristics of both recreational impacts and wildlife distribution.

Shing Mun Country Park was chosen as the study site because of good facility provision there, popularity among visitors and rich natural resources. By determining appropriate measurable indicators, spatial characteristics of 3 common visitor impacts, namely noise, littering and trampling, were investigated. With the aids of IKONOS satellite images and existing information on wildlife, spatial distribution and characteristics of biodiversity are investigated. Data with different units and natures were then combined by transforming into raster data format, the condition of recreation and conservation was illustrated in the platform of GIS.

Results indicated that a number of recreation sites on the western shore of Shing Mun Reservoir were found high in visitor impacts while they are located close to some conservational important areas. Closure of problematic recreational sites and diversion of visitors flow to areas of ecologically less important areas in the east could reduce chance of raising conflict. In addition, wildlife resources can be treated as means to develop dispersed pursuits, while comprehensive baseline information provides the knowledge base in managing the two issues.

ii 摘要

論文題目：郊野康樂與野生保育能否共存？城門郊野公園之個案硏究

張家駒

香港中文大學地理課程哲學硏士論文

二零零四年六月

郊野公園的成立不單止保育香港的野生生態，同時亦爲市民提供了進行 各種戶外活動的機會。不過，保育及戶外康樂這兩大目標似乎存在一定程度的 矛盾。爲了優化現今的郊野公園管理，我們有需要知悉康樂活動的影響與野生 生物兩者的空間分佈及其特點。可惜，過往並沒有足夠的硏究探討這兩方面在 空間上的特性。

由於其完善的郊遊設施、受遊客的歡迎程度與及豐富的自然資源，城門郊 野公園被揀選爲硏究地點。本硏究利用適當的可量度指標，紀錄了噪音、亂拋 垃圾、與及隨意踐踏植被等三種常見遊人影響的空間特性。再利用IKONOS衛 星圖像所得出的植被分類圖，與及現存之野生資源數據，在地理訊息系統的協 助下，當地在康樂及保育的實際情況被描述出來。其後，帶有不同單位及性質 的數據在轉化成矩陣模式及以線性比率分成等級以後被綜合起來，以顯示戶外 康樂活動和自然保育潛在著的衝突。

位於城門水塘西岸的一些郊遊地點被發現存在著嚴重的遊人影響，同時 亦靠近保育價値高的地帶。關閉產生衝突的郊遊地點和轉移遊客人流到生態價 値較低的地方將可減低了兩者出現衝突的機會。由此以外，野生資源可作爲發 展游離性消遣的工具；而全面的基底資料則能爲戶外康樂和生能保育所需的知 識基礎。

iii Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratefulness to my supervisor, Prof. Ng Sai-Leung, for giving me invaluable advice and guidance throughout my postgraduate study. He has assisted me a lot in research direction and project design.

I would also like to thank Prof. Fung Tung for his invaluable advice on utilization of Geographic Information System and remote sensing data. In addition, I would like to appreciate Prof. Lam Kin-Che for his helpful suggestions on the measurements of visitor impacts.

I would further like to thank Miss Yeung Shui-Ling for her assistance in solving numerous technical problems on the application of Geographic Information System and remote sensing software.

iv Table of Contents Abstract H Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents v List of Figures viii List of Tables x

Chapter 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Background 1 1.2 Objectives 3 1.3 Significance 4 1.4 Organization of the Thesis 5

Chapter 2. Literature Review 7 2.1 Hong Kong Country Parks and Management Practices 7 2.1.1 Establishment of Country Parks 7 2.1.2 Country Park Management Practices 8 2.1.3 Country Park Design 9 2.2 Negative Impacts created from Visitors 10 2.2.1 General Background 10 2.2.2 Specific Impacts 12 2.2.2.1 Noise 12 2.2.2.2 Trampling 13 2.2.2.3 Littering 15 2.3 Wildlife Resources in Hong Kong Country Parks 16 2.3.1 Wildlife Resources in Hong Kong 17 2.3.2 Conservation Efforts in Hong Kong 19 2.4 Technological Advancements in Park Management 19 2.4.1 Remote Sensing and Vegetation Mapping 20 2.4.2 GIS and Park Management 22

V Chapter 3. Study Area and Methodology 25 3.1 Introduction 25 3.2 Study Site 25 3.2.1 Park Settings 25 3.2.2 Ecological Resources 28 3.3 Field Measurement 32 3.3.1 Sampling Strategy 32 3.3.2 Impact Indicators 34 3.3.2.1 Noise 34 3.3.2.2 Trampling 35 3.3.2.3 Litter Dispersal 36 3.4 Laboratory Techniques 36 3.4.1 Remote Sensing Application 36 3.4.1.1 Image Pre-processing 36 3.4.1.2 Vegetation Index 3 8 3.4.1.3 Vegetation Class Map 39 3.4.2 The Ecological Dataset 40 3.4.3 GIS Application 40 3.4.3.1 Basic Operations 40 3.4.3.2 Composite Maps for Recreation Impacts and 41 Conservation Importance

Chapter 4. 44 Spatial Characteristics of Visitor Impact and Natural Resources 4.1 General Situation of Visitor Impacts 44 4.1.1 Patterns from Vector Data Format 44 4.1.2 Patterns from Raster Data Transformation 52 4.1.3 Composite Impact Level 56 4.2 Ecological Attributes of Shing Mun Country Park 59 4.2.1 Vegetation Cover 59 4.2.2 Water Resources 62 4.2.3 General Distribution of Wildlife 62 4.2.4 Conservation Significance on the Number of Species found 69

vi 4.2.5 Conservation Significance on the Number of Class found 69 4.2.6 Conservation Significance on the Number of Trophic Level 70 with Ecosystem 4.2.7 Composite Conservation Significance 70

Chapter 5. Discussion 78 5.1 Potential Association between Recreation and Conservation 78 5.2 Park Design 86 5.2.1 Zoning and Site Location 86 5.2.2 Road and Footpath Network 88 5.3 Problems in Country Park Management 96 5.3.1 Recreation Management % 5.3.2 Wildlife Conservation 97 5.4 Implications from the Study 98 5.4.1 Mode of Recreation 98 5.4.2 Importance of Baseline Studies 99 5.5 Recommendations for Country Park Management 101

Chapter 6. Conclusion X04 6.1 Summary of Findings 104 6.2 Limitations of the Study 105 6.3 Recommendations for Further Studies 107

Reference m Appendices 118 1. Descriptions and Basic Sensor Characteristics of IKONOS Satellite 118 Image 2. Mathematic Conversion in Radiometric Correction 120 3. Details on Aerial Photo Interpretation 121 4. Recreation Site Recording Sheet 122 5. Trespassing Recording Sheet 123

vii List of Figures Figure 2.1 A trail formed from trampling of visitors observed by the 14 auther behind a picnic site in Shing Mun Country Park. Figure 2.2 The increasing trend of total litters collected in country parks 16 in recent years. Figure 3.1 Shing Mun Country Park. 27 Figure 3.2 Distribution of the Recreation Sites in Shing Mun Country 29 Park. Figure 3.3 A schematic diagram showing how the route of noise 35 measurement was organized. Figure 4.1 The noise levels of recreation sites when visitors were present. 46 Figure 4.2 The difference in noise levels of recreation sites between the 48 presence and the absence of visitors. Figure 4.3 The trails created by visitors in Shing Mun Country Park. 49 Figure 4.4 The dispersal of litter (m) from the boundary of each 51 recreation site. Figure 4.5 The dispersal of noise impact resulting from visitors. 54 Figure 4.6 The pattern of trampling impact. 55 Figure 4.7 The dispersal of litter in Shing Mun Country Park. 57 Figure 4.8 The composite impact map by integrating the 3 impact 58 parameters. Figure 4.9 The vegetation cover in Shing Mun Country Park. 61 Figure 4.10 Vegetation map after raster format transformation. 63 Figure 4.11 Rivers and streams running through Shing Mun Country Park. 64 Figure 4.12 The occurrence records of wildlife flora and fauna around 65 Shing Mun Country Park. Figure 4.13 The Occurrences of Invertebrates in Shing Mun Country Park. 67 Figure 4.14 The Occurrences of Vertebrates in Shing Mun Country Park. 68 Figure 4.15 Areas of conservation value according to the number of animal 71 species in Shing Mun Country Park. Figure 4.16 Areas of conservation value according to number of animal 72 classes in Shing Mun Country Park.

viii Figure 4.17 Areas of conservation value according to trophic level of 73 animal species in ecosystem in Shing Mun Country Park. Figure 4.18 Map of conservation value based on the number of animal 74 species found. Figure 4.19 Map of conservation value based on number of animal classes 76 found. Figure 4.20 Map of conservation value based on the trophic levels of wild 77 animal inhabitants. Figure 5.1 Conflict between Recreation & Conservation based on no. of 83 animal species. Figure 5.2 Conflict between Recreation and Conservation based on no. of 84 animal classes. Figure 5.3 Conflict between Recreation and Conservation based on 85 trophic level of wild animals. Figure 5.4 Modeled situations of the visitor impact map after removal of 90 the 3 recreational impacts. Figure 5.5 Potential conflict between recreation and conservation based 91 on species number after removal of the 3 recreational impacts. Figure 5.6 Potential conflict between recreation and conservation based 92 on class number after removal of the 3 recreational impacts. Figure 5.7 Potential conflict between recreation and conservation based 93 on trophic levels after removal of the 3 recreational impacts. Figure 5.8 The distribution of paved roads and footpaths inside the study 95 area.

ix List of Tables Table 2.1 Number of species inhabiting in different vegetation cover 18 among each class of fauna. Table 3.1 Number of visitors going to country parks 2000/01 and 26 2001/02. Table 3.2 Baseline information on the recreation sites along Shing Mun 30 Road recorded during field observation. Table 3.3 IKONOS Radiometric Calibration Coefficients. 37 Table 3.4 Comparison of Spectral Resolution (^m) between IKONOS 38 and Landsat 7 ETM+ Satellite Images. Table 3.5 Statistic results at different stages ofNDVI calculation. 39 Table 3.6 The value of each digit at different scenarios for the 3-digit 43 index. Table 4.1 Noise level of the recreation sites. 45 Table 4.2 Dispersal and type of litter found around the 34 recreation 52 sites. Table 4.3 The resulting vegetation classes and their relative information. 60 Table 4.4 The number of wildlife occurrence records inside Shing Mun 66 Country Park. Table 5.1 Potential range of recreation-conservation composite scale 79 resulting from disturbance scale and conservation scale. Table 5.2 The invertebrates found around the downstream area of Tai 81 Shing Shek Kan. Table i IKONOS Spectral Band Characteristics for 4m multispectral 118 image. Table ii Spatial Resolutions for commonly used Multispectral Remote 119 Sensing Systems Table iii Parameters and Mathematics Conversion involved in 120 Radiometric Correction. Table iv Attribute information of the aerial photos under investigation. 121

X Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1 Background

Being a prosperous society, Hong Kong has also preserved a large part of her countryside. However, rapid growth of population and economy in the post-war years induced a large-scale expansion of the urban areas, causing threats to local natural areas. In addition, the countryside offered city dwellers opportunities of relaxation. Huge number of people rushed to the countryside for recreation, resulting deleterious effects on the natural resources. To tackle the problem, the Country Parks Ordinance was enacted in 1976 to provide the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD, formerly Agriculture and Fisheries Department, AFD) a legal framework for designation, development and management of suitable areas as country parks. Thereafter, 23 country parks have been established, representing about 43% of total land area of the territory (Country and Marine Parks Authority, 2003).

The Country and Marine Parks Authority manages the country parks in a multiple-functional fashion to serve two major objectives, namely outdoor recreation and nature conservation. Since 2000, more than 11 millions people visited these 23 country parks every year to perform a variety of recreational activities (Country and Marine Parks Authority, 2004). An increasing trend has also been observed in the number of visitation in recent years. This indicates that much pressure is posing on the country parks due to increasing volume of visitors. To facilitate the public to perform recreation activities, a wide variety of facilities are provided within the park areas. In order to execute regular management and maintenance, the authority requires a great amount of manpower. However, such traditional labour-intensive management may not be an effective practice, due to the large spatial extent and wide range of work the country park system involved.

The issue of visitor impacts has been a main concern among recreation researchers and park managers for years. Most research focused on the classification of visitor impacts (Boyle & Samson, 1985; Jim, 1987a; Vaske et al., 1995; Jim &

1 Lau, 1997; Liddle, 1997). Also, quantifying visitor impacts, including the amount and type of use, visitors' behaviours, vegetation, and the type and distribution of recreation activity were also studied (Vaske et ai, 1995; Liddle, 1997). Surely the classification and quantification can assist in assessing how severe the damage of the countryside is caused by the public mass. However, knowledge of to what spatial extent these adverse impacts spread over the country parks would be equally important (Leung & Marion, 1998). In fact, both the severity and areal extent of impact are equally important for an evaluation of visitor impacts. Without the investigation of spatial extent of these impacts, classification and quantification still cannot provide a thorough estimation of these impacts in a park. Such information provides spatial references that facilitate impact assessment and then formulation of appropriate management scheme. Therefore, the present study intends to show the spatial characteristics of the visitor impacts in a local country park.

On the other hand, the country park system also aims at conserving the integrity of the countryside resources. In Hong Kong, there is a very high biodiversity. It is an amazing fact that the number of native wildlife species is even higher than that found in the United Kingdom (Dudgeon & Corlett, 1999). In order to reconcile the contradictory objectives, a park is divided into different zones according to different intensities and natures of usage. This aggregates visitors with their impacts within the high-intensity zones and thus the ecologically sensitive areas can remain intact and undisturbed. The efforts of protecting the local biodiversity including protection of individual endangered species and preservation of areas of high biodiversity or special conservation values. Nevertheless, it is more important to know what kinds the negative influences from the crowd are while what kind of wildlife or natural resources a place is possessing.

Since wildlife usually concentrates in those areas where provide plentiful food supply and sufficient shelter, environmental consequences are large if those areas are invaded by large volume of visitors. Therefore the understanding of wildlife distribution in the park areas is crucially important for the formulation of conservation scheme. A thorough understanding on the ecological status of country parks is necessary before meaningful goal and objective on conservation strategy are set. This means information of how the wildlife species are distributed should be

2 acquired, otherwise conservation efforts by Hong Kong country parks cannot be evaluated. Furthermore, such comprehension assists in evaluating the degree of achievement or shortcoming of present conservation efforts and facilitating better park management in the future.

Along with the development of computer technologies in the past decades, Geographical Information System (GIS) and remote sensing have become popular and convenient tools for managing and analysing spatial data. These technological advances in data acquisition and data handling allow performing studies in recreation and conservation in a larger extent and more systematic fashion. In the current study, these two technologies are applied to see if computer advancement can aid the Authority in data management and decision-making processes.

1.2 Objectives

The study aims at achieving the following objectives:

1) To illustrate the spatial patterns of visitor impacts in a urban-fringe, popular country park in Hong Kong;

2) To examine the distribution of ecological resources within the park;

3) Based on the above information, to discuss the potential association between visitor impacts and biodiversity; and

4) To provide recommendations for the design & management practices in local country parks.

3 1.3 Significance

The huge visitor flow to the country parks, over 11 millions per year, undoubtedly poses heavy pressure towards the natural environment and also the facilities installed by the management authority (Country and Marine Parks Authority, 2004). As many country parks have been established more than 20 years when the volume of visitor was not as large as today's, it is necessary to review the present situation of the parks and to check whether the intended objectives are ftilfilled.

Without an understanding of spatial characteristics of visitor impacts, the works on parks design, management strategies and resources allocation plans may not be easily and efficiently formulated (Leung & Marion, 1998). Because there have been very few studies investigating the spatial qualities of visitor impacts, this study attempts to study the spatial characteristics of local visitor impacts and to investigate possible implications for the management of country parks in Hong Kong.

The distribution of wildlife is crucial to the evaluation of park design and management practices, while the problem of incompatible existence of wildlife and recreational activities can also be compounded by the absence of overall and comprehensive management (Flather & Cordell, 1995). Thus, in addition to recreation issue, park management should also be introduced according to the status of conservation. However, previous local studies aimed at compiling a checklist of wildlife in Hong Kong. The management implications with respect to the distribution of wildlife were seldom explored (Dudgeon & Coriett, 1999; Lai et a I., 2002). Therefore, this study also examines the spatial distribution of wildlife, and compares these patterns with those of visitor impacts. Potential relationships existing between visitor impacts and wildlife are identified.

The recent advancements of the computer-based technologies provide more effective and convenient means in the manipulation of both spatial and non-spatial data. The present study applies two of these advancements, namely geographic information system (GIS) and remotely sensed images, as tools for data management and result analysis. This study also discusses the potential application of the GIS to

4 the park management in Hong Kong so that the limited and precious resources of the Authority can be wisely utilized.

1.4 Organization of the Thesis

Chapter 1 provides a general background about country parks, outdoor recreation and countryside resources in Hong Kong. The objectives of the project are stated, and the significances for achieving these objectives are also addressed.

In Chapter 2, a review of literatures is provided. It starts with the establishment of the country park system, followed by descriptions of management framework and park design in Hong Kong. In addition, a review of past studies on visitor impacts is given in order to show the characteristics of disturbances caused by visitors, deficiencies in the past studies and the importance of spatial quality on visitor impact investigation. Later on, descriptions on the natural resources in Hong Kong countryside are provided. This includes a brief discussion on local wildlife including geographic settings, habitats found and species present. The conservation efforts paid by the park management authority are then stated. Subsequently, the focus is put upon GIS and remote sensing technology, which have been applied as tools in the study data management and analysis. Experiences of foreign GIS and remote sensing applications are discussed in detail.

Chapter 3 details the methodology adopted in the study. The strategy and procedures of field data collection are discussed. Finally, the ways to apply GIS and remote sensing technologies are depicted.

Results and interpretation are detailed in Chapter 4. Firstly, the patterns of visitor impacts are displayed. Information about wildlife resources and the vegetation map produced from remotely sensed satellite image in the park from previous researches are then shown. Eventually, the map layers mentioned above are overlaid on the park's environmental settings to reveal the pattern and distribution of these features.

5 In Chapter 5, based on the revealed patterns of visitor impacts and wildlife, the implications on management practices and park design are discussed. Afterward, Recommendations on park management, including modification of recreation sites and road network inside the park, change in visitors' behavior and execution of baseline ecological study are given. In addition, the potential interaction between recreation and conservation is tried to explore.

Lastly, a brief conclusion on the study's founding is given in Chapter 6. The methodologies, starting from field study to laboratory techniques, are then evaluated. Eventually, the deficiencies of the study are pointed out and recommendations for further studies are then stated.

6 Chapter 2. Literature Review

2.1 Hong Kong Country Parks and Management Practices

2.1.1 Establishment of Countly Parks

Except those lands used for new town development and agricultural production, a large part of the New Territories remains uninhabited and undeveloped. There are diverse landscapes with high scenic values, from sandy beaches and rocky shores at the sea level to mountain ranges at height of nearly 1000 meters being covered with grasses, shrubs and trees. During the colonial time, much of the countryside was Crown Land that could be considered as common heritage. Except those designated for military use and the buffer zone near the border area connecting the Mainland China, the access to countryside was virtually unrestricted (Catt, 1986). However, rapid growth of population and economy in the post-war years, especially since the 1960s, necessitated a large-scale expansion of the urban areas (Jim, 1989a). For the benefit of the city's sustainability, new towns were created to divert the increasing population from the metropolitan area to the New Territories. The lack of planning and control in the rural areas resulted many unsightly developments. Furthermore, the beautiful countryside, providing open spaces and wilderness that are lacking in the city, offered the city dwellers opportunities of escaping from the crowdedness and the quick pace of urban life. As a result, more and more people rushed to the countryside and performed a variety of recreational activities there. The uncontrolled uses may cause deleterious effects on the natural resources in the countryside (Jim, 1989a).

In response to a variety of destructive intrusions by the public, a small group of professionals, academics and amateur environmentalists voiced out the importance of countryside conservation and recreation management in the early 1960s (Jim, 1987a). A supportive report in 1965 was issued by two consultants from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (lUCN) prompting the feasibility of setting up a local country park system. In 1967, a civil disturbance report indicating the increasing demand of recreational outlets for the

7 young triggered the Government's reaction (Jim, 1987a). After some pilot schemes had been undertaken, the Country Parks Ordinance was eventually enacted in 1976 (AFCD, 2002a).

The enactment of the Ordinance provided the AFD a legal framework on designation, development, and management of suitable areas as country parks and special areas, in order to achieve a balance between provision of leisure facilities for the public and conservation of the natural resources. The Director of the AFD was appointed as the chairman of the Country Parks Authority. At the same time, a permanent Country Parks Board was approved, which acted as a consultative body to advise the Authority on conservation policies and programmes, and to consider objections to park designations and boundaries. Since then, 23 country parks have been designated. They cover a total area of 41582 hectares, representing about 43% of the Hong Kong total land area (Country and Marine Parks Authority, 2003).

2.1.2 Country Park Management Practices

The Authority manages the country parks in a multiple-functional fashion to serve different sectors with different needs (AFD, 1999). There are 2 primary objectives that the Authority wants to achieve through setting up country parks, namely outdoor recreation and nature conservation.

To fulfill the objectives of education, in addition to leaving an open countryside area for providing recreational opportunities to visitors, the Authority designs the park layouts and provides a wide variety of facilities within the park areas. These include tables and benches, barbecue pits, children's play apparatus, campsites, etc. All these efforts facilitate the public to perform their activities ranging from leisure walking, fitness exercise, hiking, barbecue, family picnics to camping (Jim, 1989a). Various duties are regularly carried out, including maintenance of the facilities in good shapes, keeping the parks clean and tidy, protection of woodland and vegetation against hill fire, afforestation and enhancement of habitats.

8 Park wardens play a very important role in country park management. They are the ones who perform periodic maintenance, carry out education programme, handle visitor enquiry, enforce the law and perform regular patrol within designated areas to ensure security and safety. In other words, the Authority requires a great amount of manpower to execute most of the management works. However, the traditional labour-intensive management may not be an effective practice, due to the large spatial extent and wide range of work the country park system involved.

Other than on-site services, the Authority is also responsible for planning and development of country parks. Feasibility studies of potential areas and designation of suitable areas as country parks and special areas are still in progress. Up to now, there are totally 23 country parks and 15 special areas (11 of them are within country parks). In addition, the Department processes over hundred of applications for development inside the boundary of country parks every year (AFCD, 2002a). Most of these applications are related to the provision of public utilities and services such as electricity, telephone and water supply. Improvement of access road and footpath, and slope stabilization works are also under the Authority's jurisdiction. Besides, building new houses by villagers living inside country park areas and destruction of vegetation at park fringe by urban expansion are also graving issues that the Department has to deal with. All these are tough tasks because of the involvement of great amount of information and the huge spatial coverage of the country parks.

2.1.3 Country Park Design

In order to make the best use of the available resources of the countryside, and to reconcile the apparently contradictory objectives, park zonation is being implemented in the country park system to allow complementary uses and to restrain undesirable visitor impacts (Jim, 1986). In practice, a park is divided into different zones according to different intensities and natures of usage. The key objective of zonation is to divert and aggregate visitors together with their impacts within the high-intensity zones that are ecologically less important. Consequently, the ecologically sensitive areas can remain intact and undisturbed.

9 At present, the delineation of a zone is mainly based on the local natural landscape and existing structures and features such as roads and major footpaths. High-intensity recreational zones are usually situated at the periphery of the park. It is because these are the most easily accessible areas within the park and are usually conveniently connected by public transport. Picnicking, barbecuing and ancillary facilities are provided in these recreation sites to encourage aggregation of visitors there.

The more interior areas are usually designated as low-intensity recreation zones where visitors have only limited assess. Visitors venturing into the low- intensity recreation zones in the park interior are confined to a unpaved footpath network and scattered camp sites. Minimum facilities are provided for catering less consumptive, low-impact pursuits such as hiking, camping and general enjoyment of the scenery and naturalness (Jim, 1989a).

Areas outside these defined nodes and lines are preserved for conservation, where assess or intrusion is absolutely discouraged. In other words, the core of the park is delineated as the conservation zone to ensure maximum protection of areas with special scientific, cultural and educational value (Jim, 1989a).

In an ideal case, a good zonation scheme can cater for the need of visitors and at the same time wildlife can be well embraced inside conservation zones. It is thus important to know what kind of wildlife or natural resources a place is possessing while the negative influences resulting from the crowd can be limited to the recreation zones.

2.2 Negative Impacts created from Visitors

2.2.1 General Background

The issue of recreation impacts has been a main concern among researchers and park managers for years, both globally and locally. Two major directions can be observed among researches relating to recreation impacts, namely classification and

10 quantification. For the purpose of classification, Boyle and Samson (1985) pointed out that the activities performed by recreationists often degrade the land, water, and wildlife resources. The consequence could be simplifying plant communities, increasing animal mortality, displacing and disturbing wildlife, and distributing refuse.

Liddle (1997) studied recreation disturbances that were affecting wildlife. He classified them systematically into 3 major types: 1) Interruption of tranquillity; 2) Interference with rights or property; and 3) Molestation. Type 1 disturbance refers to those cases that animals are aware of the physical presence of the visitors through any sense. However, there is no direct contact between recreationists and animals while the habitat has not been changed. For type 2 disturbance, the habitat is changed in some ways due to the disposal of garbage, presence of food, pathway creation, and even vegetation clearance. If recreationists have a direct and damaging contact with animals, it is categorized as type 3. Hunting and fishing well fit into this category. Accidental injury such as vehicle collision, though unintentional, also belongs to this type-

Referring to quantifying visitor impacts, Vaske et al (1995) suggested that frequency of use, type of use, and visitors' behaviours were key descriptive parameters that should be considered in determining the level of visitor impact. On the other hand, Liddle (1997) stated that the amount of impact was dependent on the amount of use, vegetation fragility, vegetation density, and the type and distribution of recreation activity.

In Hong Kong, the annual average of over 11 million visitors recorded in recent years exerts severe stresses on both the facilities and our natural environment. Continuous increase in visitor flow to the countryside was claimed as causes of negative impacts on natural areas, including soil and vegetation degradation, water pollution, littering, and unauthorized creation of footpaths and platforms (Thrower, 1984). Jim (1987a) found that soil and vegetation damage, frequent hill fires, widely scattered litter and decrease in amenity value of the parks were common consequences of the substantial increase of visitation. However, no extensive hunting was recorded, while angling is not a popular activity among visitors of country parks

11 (Jim, 1989a). As a result, according to Liddle's theory, impacts encountered in local country parks should be categorized as type 1 and type 2 only.

Other than the type and degree of severity, visitor impacts can be characterized by their spatial attributes. Lee (1993) concluded that there is a concentration of impacts from observed spatial clustering of visitors in the designated recreational sites in country parks. In fact, both the severity and areal extent of impact are equally important for an evaluation of visitor impacts. Without the investigation of spatial extent of these impacts, classification and quantification still cannot provide a thorough estimation of these impacts in a park. A review on the studies on spatial quality of visitor impact was carried out by Leung and Marion (1998). They indicated that, however, there were only a few attempts to deal with this aspect.

2.2.2 Specific Impacts

In Hong Kong, there are some impacts that are considered as primary problems that park managers are facing. They are noise produced from visitors, recreational trampling, and the littering problem (Jim, 1987a; Jim & Lau, 1997; Leung & Marion, 1999; Cessford, 2000; Deng et al, 2003). As these impacts can be directly quantified and are spatial in nature, they are discussed briefly as followings.

2.2.2.1 Noise

Noise is often produced when visitors perform their pursuits of recreation. Foreign studies indicated that noise can be produced when visitors perform activities relating automobiles, for example, experiencing an exciting trip using off-road vehicles (ORVs), small aircraft or motorboats (Cessford, 2000; Madan & Rawat, 2000). However, due to the difference in areal extent and culture, Hong Kong people usually perform leisure activities without much reliance on machines. Barbecuing, picnicking, leisure walking, hiking, and camping are some of the most common

12 activities. Nevertheless, visitors may produce noises directly when they chat, laugh, and run / walk around, or indirectly when they listen to music or radio.

When noise is produced as a result of visitors' recreation enjoyment, it may cause disturbance to some other life forms in the nature. Many wild animals possess a good hearing ability and they use it for perceiving the surrounding environment. Human noise can be heard by some animals at a distance of up to 300 m on an open space (Liddle, 1997). Wild animals often treat humans as potential predators (Bowles, 1995). Although the physiological impacts that imposed directly on wild animals by noise has not been clearly examined, they may flee or escape from the source of noises, which are stressful energetic expense to them. Some of them may even abandon their favorable habitats when they find the disturbance unacceptable. Nevertheless, some animals may be indifferent to the disturbance because they judge that the disturbance at that particular disturbance is not harmful or it has habituated to the level of disturbance (Liddle, 1997).

Although some species can make themselves accustomed to the presence of human, time and experience of having contact with visitors are necessary to the process of habituation. If the animal is young and inexperienced, or if the disturbance is unknown to the animal, as may happen when a new area is opened to recreation, or visitors new to the area and performing activities unusual to the animals, flight or fighting actions can be observed to these inexperienced individuals. In the worst case, animal may react quite negatively and can lead to injury of either the animal or the human intruder, such as reprisal bite from a harassed insect or snake (Liddle, 1997).

2.2.2.2 Trampling

Because of curiosity about unknown and inclination to explore the surrounding areas, some of the visitors may intrude the vicinity of recreational sites. Unpaved trails diverted from the major footpath constructed by the Authority are commonly seen. These trails were usually formed by frequent trampling of visitors. Once these trails are created, others visitor may try to follow the trails to explore the

13 places around, leading to further degradation of the area. Eventually, vegetation loss is resulted.

Figure 2.1 A trail formed from trampling of visitors observed by the anther behind a picnic site in ShingMun Country Park.

Jim (1989a) explained that the physical condition of vegetation became poor if mechanical damage by trampling exceeded the recovery rate. These include photosynthetic rate, vigour and resistance to disease stresses. Further trampling removed grass and shrub, and the topsoil would stand against directly to stepping pressure. The common negative influences by trampling on soil include breakdown of aggregates, reduction in porosity, increase in bulk density, and lowering of infiltration rate. Eventually, the compacted soil with poor aeration and drainage will harm plants' root system. The exposed soil is also vulnerable to erosion. Rainfall and running water can wash away the topsoil where nutrients are kept. The infertile soil

14 becomes a poor medium for plant growth, making vegetation regeneration difficult. Even though no obvious sign of vegetation clearance is seen, a light trampling influence can result in a drastic reduction of insect population around the trampled areas (Liddle, 1997). Furthermore, flightless invertebrates are usually susceptible to trampling pressure (Liddle, 1997). With their small sizes and low mobility, the range that they can sense is only a few meters.

2.2.2.3 Littering

Littering is another serious problem that park managers often complain. It is ranked second in terms of the number of prosecutions in relation to offences in countryside in the years 2000/01 and 2001/02 (AFCD, 2001 & 2002a). The amount of litter collected in country parks increased from 3,300 metric tons in year 1998/99 to a maximum of 4,100 metric tons in year 2003/04, with an average of around 3700 metric tons (Figure 2.2) (Country and Marine Parks Authority, 2004).

The statistics of the Country and Marine Parks Authority may reflect only a part of the reality because the records include only those refuse collected from rubbish bins at designated picnic and barbecuing areas, and dumping sites. Nevertheless, visitors tend to throw away litter because of convenience. Together with dispersal by wind, refuse are discovered in places outside picnic sites and even deep inside the adjacent vegetation.

The littering problem is usually resulted from barbecuing, leisure walking and hiking. Visitors usually bring food and other stuffs during their trip. Unfortunately, many visitors leave the garbage inside parks, either putting in rubbish bins or worse, anywhere. These were usually plastic bags, disposable goods, and food residues. The disposal of waste can reduce quality of recreation sites and threaten visitors' health with pathogens and parasites (Jim, 1989b). Some of those can be scattered in wilderness areas and consumed by animals. Most of the garbage is also non- biodegradable that can cause soil and water pollution. As a result, understanding the dispersal of litter can investigate any shortcoming in litter collection process by the

15 authority and thus proper manpower allocation can be determined, while the degree of penetration of the human influence into the environment can also be examined.

Metric ton

4200

4000 - y/^

3800 -

3600 -

3400 - • Z

3200 -

3000 ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ 98/99 99/00 00/01 01/02 02/03 03/04 Year

• Litter collected

Figure 2.2 The increasing trend of total litters collected in coimtiy parks in recent years (Country and Marine Parks Authority, 2004)

2.3 Wildlife Resources in Hong Kong Country Parks

Other than being the places where the public carrying out leisure activities, countryside also provides habitats for numerous species of wildlife. Amazingly, the countryside of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region, which accounts for three-quarters of the total land area, is still relatively undeveloped, and sustains diverse communities of flora and fauna. Among the different classes of life forms, such as plant, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, freshwater fishes and insects, the number of native species found locally is even more than that found in the whole United Kingdom (Dudgeon & Corlett, 1999).

A thorough understanding on the ecological status of country parks is necessary before meaningful goal and objective on conservation strategy are set. This means information of how the wildlife species are distributed should be acquired, otherwise conservation efforts by Hong Kong country parks cannot be evaluated.

16 2.3.1 Wildlife Resources in Hong Kong

To understand why a wide range of wild plants and animals can be found in Hong Kong, the types, amount and quality of the local habitats should be firstly examined. Over the limited land area, a variety of habitats can be found which support a high diversity of wildlife (Thrower, 1984). The terrestrial habitats are primarily grassland, scrubland and woodland that can be found within country parks. Moreover, numerous freshwater habitats are located along streams, rivers, wetland, fishponds in the territory.

Numerous types of habitats sustain a diverse local flora and fauna. Around 2,000 native plant species are found locally, 400 of which are native trees species while 150 are exotics. Also, 200 species of ferns, 120 species of orchids and 8 true mangrove plants are recorded (HK Discovery Team, 2002). Among the animals in Hong Kong, insects account for the greatest portion. There are more than 10,000 species found. Moths, butterflies and dragonflies are the majorities, and there are 2,200, 231 and 107 species respectively. On the other hand, 78 reptile species and 22 amphibians are recorded. Also, 48 terrestrial mammals are identified in Hong Kong's countryside. These include 22 species of bats, Common Muntjac Musk Shrew, Masked Palm-Civet, Wild Boar, Civet Cat, Pangolin, Chinese Porcupine, 2 species of Macaques and Squirrels (Ades, et al., 2002). With nearly 450 species of birds, which constitutes around 37.5% of the total number of bird species in China, Hong Kong is famous among birdwatchers worldwide (尹璉等，1994).

However, the current high diversity is undoubtedly less than would had been in the past (Jim, 1986). The original climax vegetation in Hong Kong is believed to be subtropical semi-evergreen forest. However, it was gradually removed by early inhabitants who practiced burning and felling for shifting cultivation, fuel cutting, fishing and some arable farming, followed by Chinese sedentary farmers migrating from the north at about the ninth century. Due to the massive deforestation over centuries, many forest species must have been eliminated (Thrower, 1984).

Since the 1870s, Botanical and Afforestation Department was established by the Hong Kong Government which was responsible for the afforestation of the

17 impoverished rural areas (Catt, 1986). Unfortunately, many trees were logged down due to the shortage of firewood and industrial uses during the Japanese occupancy from 1941 to 1945. Although afforestation was resumed vigorously soon after the war, the results were not so successful. It was because clearing during World War II with the widespread use of fire by man had resulted in a general degradation of the physical environment so that forest was rarely found to regenerate under natural condition (Catt, 1986).

Vegetation is considered as one of the most important biological components in a natural ecosystem. Apart from being a significant food source, they also provide wildlife animals with shelters. As a result, information on vegetation cover of an area allowed researchers and park managers to predict the likelihood of presence of wildlife fauna or flora.

The vegetated land in country parks can be broadly categorized into grassland, scrubland, and woodland. As shown in Table 2.1, these vegetation types are supporting a large number of animals. Among the three categories, woodland supports the highest number of animal species. The second important class is scrubland. It supports the greatest number of species of reptile, mollusca, and arachnida. Grassland, however, support the smallest number of species, showing its lowest place among vegetation class in terms of species richness. Therefore, the types of vegetation cover generally reflect the ecological importance of an area.

Table 2.1 Number of species inhabiting in different vegetation cover among each class of fauna (Hill et al, 1978) Grassland Shrubland Woodland Mammalia 2 1 17 —Aves TT 16 61 Reptilia ~6 14 9 — Amphibia 4 2 ~2 Mollusca 1 7 ~6 Arachnida 6 9 9 Myriaphoda 2 / ~4 Curstacea 1 / ~3 Insecta 69 21 266 Annelida I / ~1

18 2.3.2 Conservation Efforts in Hong Kong

The basic principle of wildlife conservation is to retain the diversity of biological elements and ecological processes inherent in a natural habitat (Miller, 1997). In Hong Kong, the efforts of protecting the local biodiversity can be narrowed down to two aspects, namely to protect individual endangered species and to preserve areas of high biodiversity or special conservation values (Dudgeon & Corlett, 1999).

For the protection of individual species, there is a list of protected animal species published by the authority under the Wild Animals Protection Ordinance (Cap. 170)，while plant species receive protection under the Forestry Regulations of the Forest and Countryside Ordinance (Cap. 96). However, habitat destruction is the major threat to wildlife in Hong Kong while the legal framework provides no direct protection for wildlife against such kind of threatening (Dudgeon & Corlett, 1999).

In order to preserve areas of special conservation values, the best available way is probably to designate those areas as country parks. However, there are still some areas where special features can be found, such as those areas with the presence of rare flora and fauna, intact plantation forest, feng shui woodlands, special geological formations and features of special educational, archaeological, or historical importance. If these areas are not large in size and are not suitable to be established as country parks, these sites are designated as Special Areas or Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Some of these special areas are located outside country park areas. The Tai Po Kau SSSI is a good example.

2.4 Technological Advancements in Park Management

Along with the development of computer technologies in the past decades, Geographical Information System (GIS) and remote sensing have become popular and convenient tools for managing and analysing spatial data. These technological advances in data acquisition and data handling allow performing studies in recreation and conservation in a larger extent and more systematic fashion.

19 2.4.1 Remote Sensing and Vegetation Mapping

Traditionally, field {in situ) measurement and recording the only means of data acquisition for park managers. Unfortunately, in situ data collection may cause errors due to the intrusive data collection practice, error produced from human- oriented method, or device miscalibration. To supplement the weakness in the data collection process, remote sensing data collection had been promoted since the early 1960s (Jensen, 2000). Remote sensing means to obtain information about an object without being in direct physical contact with it. Sensors installed on different types of aerial or space platforms record the electromagnetic (EM) energy emitted or reflected from an object or geographic area under investigation. The EM radiation measurements are then converted into information through both analog and digital image processing techniques (Jensen, 2000).

Since this approach had been introduced, the development of satellite and space imaging systems proceeds rapidly. Satellite imagery is captured by a sophisticated imaging sensor incorporated in an orbiting satellite. The major advantage of using remote sensing system is the broad field of view, usually hundreds of kilometers on a side, that ensures a large land coverage being scanned at a time. On the other hand, digital image processing being adopted in the sensing system performs much better on quantitative analysis and manipulation of tedious information than human with the aid of a computer. Consequently, the remote sensing technology is successfully applied to various fields ranging from military reconnaissance to meteorological observation, agricultural, forestry and even commercial uses (Short, 2002a).

The most obvious benefit for digital image processing is that the analytical output can be incorporated into GIS without significant conversion. Remote sensing- derived information is now critical to the successful modeling of numerous natural and cultural processes. GIS needs accurate updating of the spatially distributed variables in the database that remote sensing can provide. Remote sensing can benefit from access to accurate ancillary information to improve classification accuracy and other types of modeling (Jensen et al., 1994). In other words, technologies can support each other within a same platform.

20 Remote sensing is commonly used in vegetation mapping. Upon the earth surface, vegetation occupies approximately 70% of the land area. Even in Hong Kong, three quarters of the land is covered by plants (Country and Marine Parks Authority, 2003). As stated before, the major benefit of remote sensing is the broad field of view, with usually kilometers square of land being scanned at a time. The huge areal extent of plant cover thus makes remote sensing technology a suitable tool for vegetation monitoring application. Differentiation of trees types, detection of forest cover removal, classification and biomass estimation are some common applications around the world (Short, 2002b).

Multispectral sensors are responsible for the information acquisition process. The sensors usually acquire information from EM spectrum ranging from thermal and near infrared to visible regions. This fact implies a high suitability of applying remote sensing technology to recognize and classify vegetation. This is because plants absorb notably in the red and blue segments of the visible spectrum while a strong reflectance occurs in the near-infrared (NIR) region. Together with other parameters like leaf shape and size, water content, spacing of the plants and soil types, identification and monitoring of crops through space imaging becomes feasible. Moreover, this becomes one of the major tools to determine the distribution and characteristics of forest, grassland and other natural vegetation covers.

Quantification of land feature can be achieved by using a various mathematical indices. Each index provides a description of a certain aspect of the landscape pattern in a single figure (Green & Hartley, 2000). Vegetation Index (VI) is a commonly used parameter to estimate the relative abundance and activity of green vegetation through remotely sensed data (Short, 2002b). While those bands sensitive to chlorophyll absorption (i.e. red and blue) and cell wall reflectance (i.e. NIR) are selected, the data can be used to accentuate recognition of and variation within types and densities of vegetation cover.

21 2.4.2 GIS and Park Management

While remote sensing plays the role of spatial and temporal mapping of vegetation, subsequent handling and analysis of this data is performed by the GIS. The use of GIS helps to manipulate, undertake analysis of and display spatial data of any given geographic district (Burrough & McDonnell, 1998). The tool is commonly applied to perform a variety of functions, such as being a database to store and manipulate spatial and non-spatial data, and perform analysis or modelling applications for predicting purposes. With its powerful capability in visual display, the results of data processing can be shown at once in a graphic format. This can facilitate decision-making processes involved in park management and planning practices.

To increase the efficiency and reduce workload, AFD commenced to establish a computerized Country Parks Information System using GIS technique in October 1998. This information system serves mainly as a database of spatial information concerning the Country Parks System with the use of digital spatial data provided by the Lands Department (AFD, 1999). On the other hand, environmental baseline information from the study on Sustainable Development for the Century, including conservation, agriculture and fisheries, were compiled and developed into a GIS by AFCD. The GIS allows habitat-mapping function that helps the planning and management of Country Parks and Special Areas, but also facilitate the assessment of sustainability of future developments in Hong Kong (AFCD, 2001).

Nonetheless, evaluation of local ecological attributes through GIS was not originated by AFCD. Researchers from the Department of Ecology and Biodiversity, the University of Hong Kong realized the necessity of carrying out a thorough biodiversity survey and have been performing the study since 1999 (Dudgeon & Corlett, 1999). With the basic aim of identifying sites and species of special conservation value, the results have been incorporated into a GIS database and mapping facility.

As mentioned in the previous section, other than being a database, GIS is a powerful tool to tackle, manage and analyze spatial data. It provides a variety of

22 tools for spatial analysis and means for visualization of analysis result. Through appropriate manipulation of the system as a management tool, the Authority can formulate a better resource allocation scheme and park management strategy. As a result, the understanding on foreign experience on applying GIS's ability for park and natural resource management is critical when trying to incorporate it into local management scheme.

In terms of wildlife conservation, the problem that managing authorities always concern is identifying areas of conservational importance. Because of limiting resources, the priority of conservation of biodiversity can only be given to the key areas of habitat. Systematic collection is common essential tool to understand the nature and quality of a place, while GIS can digest the information and help decision-making. Government of Guyana, South America, requested an academic institution to evaluate the use of specimen collection data in identifying areas with a high priority of conservation (Funk et al., 1999). Researchers concluded that the problem of data shortage should be addressed before decisions on protected areas are made, while continued accumulation of new data is always crucial for park management.

To conserve a place, species richness and species rarity are common criteria when selecting conservation areas. In the most ideal case, the protection of all species is achieved by incorporating representatives across a network of sites. Woodhouse et al. (2000) subdivided the Wales, UK into squares of standard size and used existed data on the distribution of birds in the area with a GIS-based approach to demonstrate a model in selecting priority areas for conserving birds. Aided by the modelling capacity of GIS, he concluded that it is far better to consider the coverage of species across an entire network of protected areas than select sites based solely on individual value. On the other hand, some researchers apply GIS to help data collection. In Bioko Island, West Africa, images and statistics on bird data were produced by a combined GIS-statistical methodology (Lenton et al., 1999). In addition to identify areas of high rare species diversity, the developed model was able to show the situation of little-studied species in remote areas, and thus provide guidance in data collection strategies of the species in concern.

23 Another use of GIS is as a tool for site quality monitoring. Payn et al. (1999) had tested the potential for applying GIS to monitor changes in forest productivity and nutrition of a part of Kinleith Forest in New Zealand. By using a series of growth and foliar data, a geostatistical approach in a GIS framework was a valid tool for predicting changes in productivity and forest status over space and time. This demonstrated the applicability of the technology in supervising natural resources.

The application of GIS is not limited to the management authority. Two land conservation trusts assessed the environmental sensitivity and prioritized lands for conservation protection of Sterling Forest lands on the New York - New Jersey border, USA (Lathrop & Bognar, 1998). This demonstrates the possibility that non- profit environmental concerning associations can perform independent analysis of land conservation importance. The GIS assessment provides the basis of subsequent negotiations to environmental groups with landowners or developers on problematic development plans. In addition, general visitors can be benefited from the use of GIS. An information system was developed using a World Web Web (WWW) browser running in hypertext/hypermedia markup language (HTML) and GIS in Australia (Kirkby & Pollitt, 1998). The system aimed at providing spatial resource information together with text, audio and graphic information to eco-tourists. However, environmental managers found the system also useful to them as the scientific data from the information system helped them make decisions about the environment. The WWW browser and internet protocols also increased the accessibility of the GIS database and enhanced the information value of inherent data.

24 Chapter 3. Study Area and Methodology

3.1 Introduction

The present study consists of two major components, namely field measurement and data analysis. Field measurement comprises collection of visitor impact data and park settings. These data, together with digital maps, ecological data from both previous survey and remotely sensed image, were then incorporated and processed with GIS software.

3.2 Study Site

3.2.1 Park Settings

Both visitor flow and ecological importance vary among the 23 country parks in Hong Kong. It is thus impossible to study all parks because of constraints of time and manpower. Since the focus of this study is to study the dynamics between recreation and conservation, those country parks with high popularity to visitors and high biodiversity are preferred.

Shing Mun is one of the most popular country parks in Hong Kong. Among those the authority having statistical record, Shing Mun is at the eighth place in terms of annual visitor numbers (Table 3.1). In addition, Shing Mun Country Park was designated on 24"�of June, 1977. It is one of the three earliest Country Parks in Hong Kong (李日陽，1999). Having been developed for a long time, the facilities provided in the parks are relatively well-equipped. For this reason, it is the choice of many citizens to perform picnicking, barbecuing and hiking at weekends (Jim, 1989a).

Shing Mun covers a total of 1,400 hectares, extending from Lead Mine Pass in the north, to the Shing Mun Road in the south, and from Tai Mo Shan in the west to Grassy Hill and Needle Hill in the east (Figure 3.1). Shing Mun Country Park is situated closely to the densely populated urban area of Tsuen Wan and Tai Wai. City

25 dwellers can access the park by a variety of traffic means, and it takes only 20 minutes to walk along the Shing Mun Road and reach the main entrance from Lei Muk Shue Estate. Every morning, many people go to Shing Mun Country Park for leisure walking, jogging and other kinds of physical exercises along the trails within the park. Also, the park is crowded with visitors in weekend or during public holidays.

Table 3.1 Number of visitors going to countiy parks 2000/01 ami 2001/02 (AFCD, 2002a).

Country Parks* 了。丨二广广二^^^ Change / Q/o 一 Plover Cove 1 837 OOP 1 909 OOP 3.92 Sai Kung 1 789 000 — 1 816 000 1.51 _ Lantau (North & South)— 1 596 000 1 533 000 — -3.95 Aberdeen 一 988 OOP 1011 000 2.33 Quarry Bay 717 000 691 OOP -3.63 _ Ma On Shan 一 753 OOP 605 OOP “ -19.65 Tai Tarn — 530 OOP 534 OOP 0.75 Shing Mun 384 OOP 397 OOP 3.39 Clear Water Bay 311 OOP 349 OOP 12.22 Pat Sin Leng 389 000 347 OOP -10.80 Lung Fu Shan 272 000 280 000 — 2.94 Tai Lam 260 OOP 278 OOP 6.92 Tai Mo Shan 一 213 OOP 228 OOP 7.04 Pokfulam — 185 OOP 197 OOP 6.49 Lion Rock — 201 OOP 183 OOP — -8.96 Lam Tsuen 27 OOP 27 000 Q *Only statistics of 16 parks were available in AFCD 's annual reports.

There are a total of 34 recreation sites along the Shing Mun Road, as illustrated in Figure 3.2, while some basic information about the sites were given in Table 3.2. 11 of them are barbeque sites, which are found starting fi-om the Pineapple Dam, distributing along the southern shore, and reaching to the main dam of the Shing Mun Reservoir. This reduced the chance that the intact, rich vegetation at the north of the reservoir being damaged by hill fires due to careless lighting by the visitors. Others are picnic sites where no barbeque is allowed. 4 of the barbeque sites have paved ground while only 1 out of these 23 picnic sites is paved too. In addition, differences can be seen upon the number of other facilities provided between the two types of sites. An average of 9.09 table and bench sets are found in barbeque sites

26 0 1 a KlIoffMNrs

Figure 3.1 Shing Mun Country Part while only 3.57 sets are provided per picnic site. Also, 11.18 rubbish bins and 5.64 recycle bins are averagely supplied in barbeque sites while only 4.78 rubbish bins and 0.48 recycle bin can be found in picnic sites. On the other hand, the proportions of pavilions and toilets are similar in both types of sites. This indicates that barbeque sites are treated as the honey spots to attract the majority of visitors. This was shown by a higher average number of visitors met during the field observation (see Table 4.1).

A 800-m natural trail is situated along the west coast of the reservoir for educational purpose. On the other hand, people can enjoy jogging or leisure walking on the jogging trail along the east shore. Sections 7 and 8 of the MacLehose Trail also run through the Park from Smugglers' Ridge in the southeast part of the park to Route Twisk in the west. This is a great attraction for people who are fond of hiking. On the other hand, a campsite is provided near Lead Mine Pass for trail hikers.

3.2.2 Ecological Resources

A good vegetation cover is found in Shing Mun which is a result of hardworking reforestation over a century. Prior to the World War II, Chinese Red Pine {Pinus massoniana) was the dominant planted species but most trees had been logged by the Japanese military force for fuel woods. After the 1950s, Splash Pine {Pinus elliottW), Brisbane Box {Lophostemon confertus). Paper-bark tree {Melaleuca quinquenervia) and Taiwan Acacia {Acacia confusa) were introduced. Other than planted species, there are numerous native plant species found in the park including Pond Spice {Litsea glutinosa), Lantana {Lantana camara). Opposite-leaf Fig {Ficus hispida). Hog Plum {Choerospondias axillairs), bamboos, lichens, etc (Country and Marine Parks Authority, 2002b). A small piece of feng shui woodland is found near the northern tip of Shing Mun Reservoir, which was the former Tai Wai Village and excavated due to construction of the reservoir. They are preserved by the local villagers because of superstitious reasons ("feng" literally means "wind" and “shui” means "water"). Although small in size, it is well developed and rich in flora diversity. It is designated as a Special Area deserving special protection (AFCD, 2000).

28 1 0 1 2 Kilometers

Figure 3.2 Distribution of the Recreation Sites in Shing Mun Country Park (bbq: Barbecue sites; pic: Picnic sites). Facilities Provided / no. Site ED Site Type Area / m Ground Type Table & ！ BBQ pits Bench set Table Bench Rubbish Bin Recycle Bin Pavilion Information Sign Toilet 1 BBQ 354 Paved 5 " 3 — 0 ' 0 " 4 3 0 0 0 2 BBQ 509 Unpaved 9—6 一 0 " 3 ~ 9 ~ 3 1 0 0 3 BBQ 841 Un^ved 16 ~ 10 — 0 0 10—4 1 0 0 4 BBQ ^555 Paved 19 ~ 18 — 0 “ 14 18 — 5 0 0 0 5 — BBQ 568 Unpaved 6 一 3 — 0 6 一 9 9 0 — 1 0 6 BBQ 879 Unpaved 20 ‘ 19 — 2 2—13—8 1 1 0 7 BBQ US? Paved 20 “ 14 ~~ 0 " 0 ~ 10 7 1 0 1 8 BBQ 749 Paved 9 " 4 — 0 “ 2 6— 7 0 0 0 9 BBQ 363 Unpaved 9 " 3 3 " 0 ~ 7 0 0 0 0 10 BBQ 400 Unpaved 5 3 — 0 " 1 ~ 7 5 1 10 n B^ MIS Un}»ved 31 fT^ 1 30 ~ ]] P. J. L.—.. """"12 Picnic 247"""""""""Unpav^""""0 ..… 3 5""""..…"""o"""—… 3 "o" 0 0 "o"""" 13 — Picnic — 1,182 - Unpaved — 0 1 0 _ 0 — 5 0 1 0 0 14 Picnic “ 683 “ Unpaved 0 4 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 15 Picnic “ 526 Unpaved 0 3~0 1~4 1 0 0 0 16 Picmc 316 Unpaved 0 4 — 0 " 0 ~ 4 ~~ 1 1 0 0 17 Picnic 240 _ Unpaved 0—2 0—0 2 0 0 0 ^ 18 Picnic - 852 ' Unpaved 0 8 一 0 0 4 1 1 0 1 19 Picnic 498 ‘ Paved 0 0 — 0 2 6 1 1 1 0 20 Picnic “ 222 Unpaved 0 0 0 0 2 0 I 0 0 21 ~ Picnic “ 2,654 Unpaved 0 4 0 0 4 3 1 0 0 22 — Picnic — 1,636 一 Unpaved 0 4 一 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 23 ~ Picnic “ 5,092 “ Unpaved 0 14 0 0 ^ 0 2 0 1 24 — Picnic - 863 “ Unpaved 0 3 0 3 6 0 0 0 0 25 — Picnic - 867 一 Unpaved 0—4 0 “ 0 2 0 0 0 0 26 ~ Picnic “ 584 “ Unpaved 0 2 0 2 4 0 0 0 0 27 - Picnic - 1,783 “ Unpaved 0 3 0 5 6 1 1 1 0 28 — Picnic 2,236 Unpaved 0 — 3 0 3 3 1 1 0 0 29 ~ Picnic “ 657 Unpaved 0 3 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 30 Picnic 2,448 “ Unpaved 0 7 0 5 9 1 1 0 1 31 Picnic 517 ~ Unpaved 0 ~ 2 0 3 3 0 0 0 0 32 ~ Picnic ~ 641 Unpaved 0 ~ 2 0 " 1 3 0 0 0 0 33 Picnic 187 Unpaved 0 4 0 4 4 0 0 0 \ ^ Picnic 811 Unpaved | 0 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 4 0 g_ Tai Shing Shek Kan originated from the eastern slope of Tai Mo Shan empties to the northwest of the reservoir. The riparian areas of the stream are rich in vegetation, including a variety of shrubs, grasses and trees. Camellia gmnthamiana, a rare species found only a few decades ago, is found there. A group of natural high- altitude scrubland situated on the upper stream is also designated as a Special Area that is worth more attention (Country and Marine Parks Authority, 2002b). On the other hand, many plant specimens, including a collection of bamboos, protected plant species and those first discovered in Hong Kong, etc., are also displayed in the Shing Mun Arboretum. 4-hectare abandoned terraced fields is found on the southwest flank of Grass Hill. Until 2000, a total collection of some 300 species have been recorded, most of them are indigenous to Hong Kong or South China. Tree planting around the Arboretum began in the early 1970s, which plays a significant role in flora conservation (AFCD, 2002b).

Other than plants, Shing Mun is also rich in wild animals. For birds, although the reservoir is not attractive to any waterfowls, the main interests here are forest species such as Rufous-necked Scimitar Babbler {Pomatorhinus ruficollis (stridulus)) and Rufous-capped Babbler {Stachyris ruficeps (davidi)). Rufous turtle-dove {Streptopelia orientalis), crow-pheasant {Centropus sinensis), black kite (Milvus lineatus), and magpie {Pica pica)(李日陽，�999). There are also flocks of minivets, warblers, robins, flycatchers and thrushes. Little Green Heron {Butorides striatus) and Plumbeous Redstart {Rhyacornis fuliginosus) can be found on Tai Shing Shek Kan during the wintertime (HKBWS, 2002). For animals, Pallas's squirrel {Callosciurus erythraeus styani), common muntjac {Muntiacus mimtjac), wild boars {Sus scrofa) and pangolin {Manis pentadactyla) may be sighted occasionally (Country and Marine Parks Authority, 2002b). Monkeys can often be found along the major road surrounding the reservoir. They belong to the species of Rhesus macaque {Macaca mulatto) and are believed to have migrated from nearby Kam Shan Country Park (李日陽，1999; Ades et al” 2002). Although these revealed the general ecological background of the park, they will not be incorporated into subsequent analysis due to the lack of spatial information.

31 3.3 Field Measurement

Field visit allows us to examine the actual situation of the sites. From the operational viewpoint, field observation is simple, inexpensive, and also relatively easy to organize. Visitors' activities and behavior can be observed in an unobtrusive way that the measurement does not interrupt visitors' performance and recreational experience (Jim, 1989b). Therefore a better understanding on what they are actually doing can be recorded.

3.3.1 Sampling Strategy

Shing Mun Road is the major road in the park (Figure 3.2). It passes through the two dams at the southern coast of Shing Mun Reservoir, then goes northward to meet the plantation areas and Tai Shing Shek Kan, and then goes southward to the main entrance at the Pineapple Dam. The road connects the park with the residential area in Shueng Kwai Chung. On the other hand, it links all designated recreation sites together surrounding the reservoir.

Visitors' behavioural studies revealed that they have a strong inclination of concentrating around the main roads and public transport nodes (Jim, 1989a). Therefore it is appropriate to observe and record the impact parameters along Shing Mun Road. Nevertheless, visitors are fond of staying at some hot spots along the road: barbecue and picnic sites. It is because these sites have been modified so that relatively large and open spaces are given for people to perform a variety of recreation pursuits. Most of the facilities are also placed within or near to these designated sites. It is believed that visitors would spend most of their time to stay around these sites. Therefore they were chosen to observe and record the impacts caused by visitors' activities. The recording forms used in the field visit could be seen in Appendices 4 & 5.

The current research intends to perform a qualitative study on the spatial extent of visitor impact and ecological attributes distribution. How deep the diffusion of negative influence fi-om recreation into the interior of the park is the major

32 concern. On the other hand, the number of visitors going to country parks is fluctuating with time. Previous studies indicated that mid-spring, autumn and early winter are the most popular periods for recreation activities (Jim, 1989a). On a weekly basis, more than half of the visitors come during weekend. Sunday accounts for over 30% and Saturday for 20% of the total visits respectively (Lee, 1993). Weekdays contribute the 40% left. On the other hand, over 90% of visitors come on either sunny or cloudy days. Only around 7% are willing to visit during raining days. In summary, country parks should be very busy during weekends if the weather is suitable for outdoor activities. As a result, the situation of visitor impacts collected during the period stated above reflects the actual problem that the authority is dealing with. On the other hand, the data showing the worse case, i.e. the greatest value among samples, were applied in subsequent analysis to represent the greatest extent of impact dispersal.

To ensure the greatest amount of visitor impacts could be observed, the time when the study site is the most crowded is chosen for field observation. The sampling period was in autumn of 2001, from the middle of October to the first week of December. In order to meet the time when the study site was crowded with visitors, field study was performed on each Saturday and Sunday during the 8-week period, except 3 days with poor weather that a few visitors were expected going to the park. Furthermore, the park was also visited during weekdays in order to compare the difference when visitor is absent and collect baseline information such as facilities provided.

Visitors usually perform one-day trips to country parks. Majority of them arrive in the morning and the peak time of leaving is before the evening (Lee, 1993). Within the period, recreation sites and paths were crowded with visitors. As a consequence, the field data collection was carried out within the period to ensure that the greatest visitor impacts could be observed. Based on the field observation, about 3 hours were required to finish a walk through the Shing Mun Road in a normal pace, the investigator began the field trips from 10:00a.m. and visited all recreation sites to carry out data collection before the peak hour of departure.

33 3.3.2 Impact Indicators

This study aimed to investigate the spatial extent of visitor impacts and ecological elements. Since not all visitor impacts stated before could be directly quantified and were spatial in nature, it was therefore necessary to identify meaningful and measurable indicators to represent visitor impacts. An indicator was a measurable parameter that represents the impact. In order to record the degree of the visitor impacts stated above, it is necessary to determine measurable and meaningful indicators for each of the impacts. The indicators are discussed below.

3.3.2.1 Noise

To determine the degree of disturbance, a quantified measurement should be used for comparing the noisiness of the sites. Unlike a machine at a fixed location, noise produced by recreational activities has no unique pattern. It is because a variety of activities are performed by visitors. Each activity may produce unique noise. On the other hand, the noise produced by individual visitor depends on his/her own character and behavior, while the duration and loudness are also different among individuals. Therefore the noise being recorded is usually fluctuating in nature. As a result, Energy Equivalent Sound Level, or Leq within a period of time was adopted as a noise descriptor in this project. It represents the level of an equivalent constant sound which would have the same total energy as the fluctuating sound over the time interval. This noise descriptor used a sound pressure level in “A” weighting network, i.e. in terms of dB (A) to describe the amplitude of the noise.

Noise measurement was performed over all of the 34 recreation sites. A portable Rion Precision Integrating Sound Level Meter NL-11 was used to perform Leq measurement in the field study. A 5-minute measurement was carried out in every site to allow a comparison among sites so that the spatial pattern of sites ranging from the quietest to the noisiest one can be deduced. During the measurement, the reading recorded might be skewed by some noisier individuals unevenly distributed over a site. Therefore static measurement undertaken at the central point of the site seemed not appropriate. Therefore, the field observer carried

34 the portable noise meter to walk through the site in a normal walking pace (Figure 3.3). The route organized in such a "web" manner enabled the measurement including both noisy and quiet visitors inside the sites and thus could represent the

real situation.

——：

Measuring Paths ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

書

Figure 3.3 A schematic diagram showing how the route of noise measurement was organized The measurement was performed by the portable noise meter by walking across horizontally (red arrows) and then vertically (blue arrows) with the measurement interval.

3.3.2.2 Trampling

The vegetation patterns in the vicinity and trails were used as an indicator of trampling. To check the occurrence of trails formed by trampling, the whole Shing Mun Road and the periphery of every recreation site along the road were walked through and examined. It was because they were usually in a form of small trails diverting from major footpaths or recreation sites and stretching into woodlands and scrublands. A sudden and narrow disappearing of grasses away from a footpath is a good indicator of trampling, resulted from damage of vegetation due to frequent walking and intrusion. During the field visit, the locations of all these trails were recorded. Then they were walked along to examine their patterns and the depth they intrude into the wild places away from major footpaths. These two pieces of information, together with the landscape characteristics and any features nearby, were sketched on-site and input into GIS later on.

35 3.3.2.3 Litter Dispersal

To examine the dispersal of refuse inside the park, the periphery of every site is checked to see the presence of any litter. If litters were found around the recreation site, the distance between the furthest litter and the picnic and barbecue site boundary was recorded in order to show the greatest extent of visitor impact created by littering. Any type of litter found within the picnic and barbecue site was also noted. The information on dispersal distance was then input into the GIS database for subsequent organization and analysis.

3.4 Laboratory Techniques

Prior to data analysis, it is necessary to transform collected data in an appropriate format so that they can be imported into a database. Other available data essential to the analysis process such as existing ecological data and satellite image for vegetation information are pre-processed and manipulated before incorporating into GIS.

3.4.1 Remote Sensing Application

Vegetation information was acquired from an IKONOS imagery taken on 23rd of December, 2000 covering the Central New Territories. The high spatial resolution obtained in IKONOS sensor, 4-m multispectral and 1-m panchromatic images, allows detailed examination of most features on the earth's surface, including vegetation (Please refer to Appendix 1 for details of an IKONOS image).

3.4.1.1 Image Pre-processing

The image was pre-processed to restore distortion originated from image acquisition process. Firstly, PCI Geomatica v.8.1.0 OrthoEngine® was used to orthorectify the imagery with reference to the 5-m digital elevation model (DEM)

36 archived in the Department of Geography and Resource Management, CUHK. Earth Model METRE E012 (WGS 84) was chosen to geo-reference the image to the vector data in Hong Kong 1980 grid system. 20 Ground Control Points (GCPs) were collected at features of known ground location such as road junctions and river intersections from both the imagery and the DEM. The overall RMS error was 0.49 pixels.

Then, the imagery was transformed by radiometric correction into at-aperture, in-band radiance. Calibration coefficients were obtained in the homepage of Space Imaging, Inc. (2002). The process applied the following equation:

Li，j，k=^(eq.l)， where: i, j, k were IKONOS image pixel i, j in spectral band k，Lij,k was in-band radiance at the sensor aperture (mW/cm^*sr), CalCoefk was in-band radiance calibration coefficient (mW/cm^*sr*DN), and DNi, j，k were image product digital number (DN). The calibration coefficients of the IKONOS products adopted were shown in Table 3.3.

Table 3.3 IKONOS Radiometric Calibration Coefficients. Calibration Coefficient for individual band

[mW/(cm^*sr*DN)J Production Date Blue Green Red NIR Pre 22/02/2001 ^ m ^ m

The radiance data obtained were further converted into reflectance. Since the spectral characteristics for the four bands of IKONOS are similar to those of Landsat 7 ETM+ (Table 3.4), the values of ESUN^, for Landsat 7 image calibration were adopted to correct the effects of sun angles, solar zenith angle, earth-sun distance and mean solar exoatmospheric irradiance in the IKONOS radiance data with the following equation:

PP= ~£5WVx*cos0s~ (eq.2)，

37 where pp was unitless planetary reflectance, Lx was spectral radiance at the sensor's aperture, d was earth-sun distance in astronomical unit, ESUN；^ was mean solar exoatmospheric irradiance, and 0s was solar zenith angle in degrees. The details of mathematics conversion involved in radiometric correction can be found in Appendix 2.

Table 3.4 Comparison of Spectral Resolution (junt) between IKONOS and Landsat 7 ETM+ Satellite Images. (Fair, 1999, Space Imaging, Inc., 2002) Satellite Type Blue Green Red NIR IKONOS 0.445-0.516 1.506-0.595 Q.632-.0698 0.757-0.853 Landsat 7 ETM+ 0.45-0.52 0.53-0.61 0.63-0.69 0.78-0.9

3.4.1.2 Vegetation Index

The aim of applying vegetation index (VI) is to extract only the necessary vegetation information from the satellite image. VI make use of vegetation's notable absorption in the red (R) and blue segments of visible spectrum by plant pigments like chlorophyll, and its very strong reflectance in the near infrared (NIR) by the liquid water in leaves. These characteristics allow vegetation distinguished from most other features on the earth's surface.

Most commonly used VI is the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which is defined as below:

NIR-R ,，、 NDVI= Si^ (eq.3),

The NDVI equation produces values in a range from —1.0 to 1.0, where increasing positive values indicate increasing green vegetation, while zero and negative values indicate non-vegetated surface features such as water, soil, concrete, etc. Xpace in PCI Geomatica was used to calculate NDVI.

Part (a) in Table 3.5 shows the statistics of the NDVI results stored in a 32-bit channel of the image. The results were further transformed to 8-bit ones (Part (b)) in order to display the pseudocolour table (PCX) of the channel. By comparing with the rectified IKONOS image and also aerial photos covering the study area, the

38 boundary of vegetation was determined and the range of the PCX was refined. Finally the grey level of 204 to 245 was applied as the PCX range for vegetation cover, and a bitmap containing the vegetation cover of the study area was produced

Table 3.5 Statistic results at different stages of NDVI calculation. Stage of Calculation Median Mean value S.D. Min. Max. (a) 32-bit NDVI 0.5989 0.5533 0.1624 -1“ 0.8755 (b) 8-bit NDVI ^ 211.5216 22.1680 0 ^^

3.4.1.3 Vegetation Class Map

The bitmap resulting from NDVI calculation was used as mask and the areas covered by vegetation of the corrected satellite imagery were then classified. As the classification mainly depended on the result of NDVI calculation rather than the field information, an unsupervised classification by using ISODATA Classifier was performed. Primarily, 19 classes appeared in the raw classification result.

The purpose of classification was to classify the vegetation into the major habitat classes, i.e. woodland, scrubland, grassland. It was necessary to reduce the number of classes through post-classification modification. Class aggregation with reference to signature separability statistics of the classification results was performed. Signature separability was an indicating value to show how well each class produced from classification process is separated from each of the other classes. Those pairs of classes with separability value lower than 1.9 were identified and aggregated into new single pairs in order to simplify the classification result.

In addition, manual refinement of misclassified discrete pixels on resulting bitmap was performed. The processes were aid by aerial photograph observation (as described in Appendix 3) and vegetation condition from field observation. Consequently, 4 major classes of vegetation: woodland, scrubland, grassland and vegetation under shadow were identified and output into GIS-compatible files for result map production.

39 3.4.2 The Ecological Dataset

The ecological data were obtained from a biodiversity survey across the local territory performed by the Department of Ecology & Biodiversity of the University of Hong Kong (Dudgeon & Corlett, 1999). The methodology employed is summarized here. The researchers put existing data from previous studies into a GIS compatible format, while initiated survey on species groups which had not been investigated previously. The sampling had been habitat-based, including major sections of New Territories, non-urban Kowloon, and the majority of local islands. Survey efforts was stressed upon those local habitats which show the least evidence of recent human impact as it was in these sites that the most diverse communities was expected. Standard sampling methods were applied to corresponding groups of organisms. All surveys were recorded to the nearest 100m.

Data were in the form of species occurrences because more weight was placed on positive records while absence of fauna might be due to seasonal movements, dormancy, or genuine non-occurrence. Eventually a GIS database comprised species distribution data for the major groups of organisms in non-marine habitats in Hong Kong in coverages of either points or polygon features was compiled. Each individual point represented a floral or faunal record with detailed information such as species name and date of survey contained in attribute tables. The polygon features represent data recorded in grids or map unit of approximately 1km. Since the target site in this research project is Shing Mun Country Park, only the occurrence data found within the park area was extracted for analysis purpose.

3.4.3 GIS Application

3.4.3.1 Basic Operations

The computerized field data, the existing ecological dataset, the vegetation classification results, together with the topographic base map layers from the Lands Department, HKSAR, were combined together by Arc View® 3.2 GIS software. Descriptive maps on the pattern of visitor disturbance, and the distribution of wildlife

40 occurrence and vegetation covers were produced by overlaying corresponding features.

Then, the vector data sets used above were transformed into raster form in order to produce a continuous surface of square grid cells with standard size. The transformation allows display of phenomena varying continuously over space and thus analysis of flows and trends became possible. The analysis extent was set as the boundary of the park. On the other hand, as the Biodiversity Survey dataset was recorded to the nearest 100m, the size of the grid cells was defined as 100m x 100m. Then, all the data conversion and analysis processes were based on these two parameters. Through the Spatial Analyst extension of the GIS software, the polygon features were transformed to grid by the "convert to grid" function. On the other hand, the values of point features were converted to surface through the "interpolate grid" operation.

3.4.3.2. Composite Maps for Recreation Impacts and Conservation Importance

Apparently, each of the visitor impact had it own unit or scale. To incorporate different dataset, each of them was firstly assigned a linear scale from 1 — 10, with 1 being not disturbed while 10 being the most heavily disturbed. The composite impact map was then constructed by giving the 3 disturbance parameters equal importance in determining the mostly heavily impacted areas, i.e. the ratio of noise to littering to trampling was 1:1:1. This was performed by adding the 3 grids together and dividing by 3 for achieving a scale with 10 grades.

For determining conservation importance, a grid cell was graded according to 2 criteria: the ecological value of a place as habitat and the animal inhabitants. The vegetation cover and water resources were the variables under consideration about the first criterion. For vegetation, since woodland was the climax stage of natural plant succession and could support a greater number of wildlife individuals, the value of 3 was assigned to the classes Woodland. Comparatively, scrubland supported less animal species, and was at the intermediate stage from grassland to woodland during succession, relating classes were then assigned as 2. Grassland was treated as the

41 lowest when concerning ecological value among vegetation types due to the fact of providing limited resources for smaller number of species, the least value 1 was then assigned to the class Grassland. Moreover, since the class Shadow was not distinguishable into any of the above classes, it was assumed as the least productive class and to it the value 1 was assigned.

On the other hand, the occurrence records of wildlife animals were considered through 3 aspects, including the number of species found, the number of class found, and the number of trophic level along the food chain. As the point features were recorded to the nearest 100m，they were firstly projected to circle polygons with diameter of 200m, and then transformed into grid cells. Some of the animal classes, including amphibian, reptile, bird and mammal, possessed polygon features of occurrence records in 1km x 1km squares. These records were also added . to the point records of these classes before the data conversion process for the purpose of completeness of the dataset.

After grading the different aspects about wild resources, the three components (vegetation covers, water resources, and wild animals) were integrated with an index approach. The index comprised of 3 digits: XYZ，where X was the value for vegetation cover multiplied by 100, Y was the value for water resources multiplied by 10，Z was the exact value for wildlife animals. Since there were 3 aspects to assign value on the field of wild animals，3 different sets of index were also applied. Then the conservation significance was determined by adding up the value of 3 digits. Table 3.6 illustrated the expression of the index when considering different parameters.

42 Table 3.6 The value of each digit at different scenarios for the 3-digit index. X Vegetation Cover Y Water Resources Z Wild Animals When concerning no. of animal species: 0 Non-vegetation 0 Absence 0 0 sp 100Grassland / Shadow10 Presence 1 1-20 sp i Scrubland ^ ^^^^^ 300 Woodland 41. sp ~4 61-80 sp 81-100 sp ^ 101-120 sp ^ 121-140 sp

； I = When concerning no. of animal classes: 0Non-vegetation^ 0 Absence 0 0 class 100 Grassland / Shadow 10 Presence 1 1 class IScrubland ‘婉必^二 “應 “Woodland 翁 ^^^^ 丁 3 classes

When concerning trophic level of animals: ~0Non-vegetation^ 0 Absence 0 No animal 100Grassland / Shadow 10 Presence 1 Level I Scrubland 脱:二,” ^ L^^ "W 二圓3 level I & II or III

43 Chapter 4.

Spatial Characteristics of Visitor Impacts and Natural Resources

4.1 General Situation of Visitor Impacts

4.1.1 Patterns from Vector Data Format

The noise levels of the 34 recreation sites recorded during field measurement are shown in Table 4.1. Column (a) shows the background noise level of the sites when there were no visitors present. Column (b) shows the highest noise level recorded in the period of field visit when there were visitors performing recreation activities. The difference between two noise levels and the number of visitor present in each sites are shown on the last two columns.

When there were no visitors, the baseline noise levels of both barbeque sites and picnic sites were similar, i.e. around 45 dBA Leq. However, when there were visitors staying, about 63 dBA Leq was recorded in barbeque sites. On average, there were 40.36 visitors who produced an increase of 16.95 dBA Leq upon the baseline noise level. On the other hand, the mean Leq in picnic sites was 57.6 dBA when visitors were present. A mean of 18 visitors were found to produce the additional 12.81 Leq. It was found that the number of visitors staying in barbeque sites was more than twice of those in picnic sites, and the noise level there was 6 dBA Leq higher than in picnic sites.

Figure 4.1 shows the noise level of recreation sites when visitors were present. In the noisiest class, 69.4，73.8 and 90.7 Leq were recorded in barbeque sites no. 1,7 and 8 respectively. 21，180 and 71 visitors were met in these three sites. On the other hand, 2 picnic sites were also found in the noisiest classes. They were sites 30 and 34 and noise levels above 70 Leq were measured. This was because of large groups of visitors (75 and 40 respectively) encountered during field visits that produced a relatively high noise level while performing recreation activities. This shows that other than barbecue sites, heavy noise impact also happened among picnic sites that are situating near the inner part of the park.

44 �

Site ID (a) Noise level - without visitor (dBA L,^ (b) Noise level - with visitor (dBA L^ \ 48:2 §M ^ 23 2 46^ 55.8 “ 9.2 10 I 112 56.1 - 10.9 22 4 47^ 61.8 — 14.8 65 5 59.4 “ 16.8 14 6 46J 59.3 “ 13.2 18 I 44^ 73.8 “ 28.9 180 8 ^ 43.1 — 71 9 56.8 —— 6.9 — 14 10 一 47.3 59.8 _ 12.5 13 _ H _ 43.4 'J^ “ 14 1 2 4ll " " 5l6 8：5 — 7 1 3 47J 61.2 “ 14.1 22 1 4 44^ •/ 一 / 0 15 44.4 — */ — / 0 16 — 39.2 */ / 0 ^ 17 47^ •/ “ / 0 18 46.8 — 56.6 — 9.8 18 19 — 43.5 58.9 “ 15.4 7 2 0 ^ 59J 13.2 — i 21 — 43.2 54.1 10.9 30 2 2 ^ 54.4 — 6.3 22 ~ 23 “ 47.0 ~~ 52.6 5.6 — 20 ~ 2 4 60.4 13.9 9 25 42.7 — 54.4 — 11.7 5 26 - 39.3 一 */ / — 0 27 ~ 45.8 — 58.5 12.7 — 10 2 8 ^ 53.8 — 9.7 — 5 29 “ 50.4 “ */ — / 0 30 ~ 47.3 72.6 25.3 75 3 1 51.7 7.3 11 32 41.2 一 47.8 — 6.6 2 33 — 47.3 * / / 0 34 40.4 — 73.5 “ 33.1 “ 40

A=e ^ 63.25 16.95 40.36 一

=te 44.79 一 57.6 — 12.81 17.75 ^Average 45.44 59.90 一 14.46 26.96 一 Visitors were (a) absent & (b) present. (*: no record as no visitors were found during data collection period & not included in #.) 1 _2 Kilometers

Figure 4.1 The noise levels of recreation sites when visitors were present. The differences of noise level between the situations when visitors were absent and present were shown in Figure 4.2. Sites 1, 7, 8, 30 and 34 were found to be experiencing the greatest difference of noise level. The differences ranged from 16.8 to 43.1 dBA Leq. All of these points were in the southern tip and the peripheral area of the country park. On the other hand, it is also worth noting that significant differences were found in sites 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, and 27. The differences ranged from 9.8 to 16.8 dBA Leq among these sites. As these sites are located at the northern bank of the reservoir, they may induce adverse effects to the interior part of the country park.

On the other hand, the trails created by trampling of visitors were shown in Figure 4.3. Other than the map features displayed in previous figures, contour lines (the yellowish green lines) were also introduced to see if landscape is a factor influencing visitors' behavior and in turn the pattern of the trails. From the figure, it was found that most of the trails appeared along the northwest coast of the reservoir. A group of relatively long and clear trails were found concentrating on a piece of flat land near sites 23 and 24 around there dense paper-bark trees {Melaleuca quinquenervia) were planted. Many of the others were found along the road starting from the northern comer of the reservoir, passing the paper-bark tree plantation, to the Pineapple Dam, running through a number of picnic sites. It was found that the terrain was quite gentle, as shown by the broader placement of the contour lines. Only two relatively short trails were found along the southeast portion of Shing Mun Road; one was found near site 15 while another starting from boundary of site 16. The contour lines there were comparatively closer to each other, revealing a steeper terrain.

47 mi ^ 二：

1 0 1 2 Kilometers

Figure 4.2 The difference in noise levels of recreation sites between the presence and the absence of visitors. .< ^^ py��',-：HBuildings > �)‘ ) iWVi t’�‘ /W ) C^-^ iC £ "- ^ Road

奪,/、；, .•类夢

Q5 0 Ofi 12 Kilomfters —^^gssiiiiiii^aggg——gggiia——――mJ

Figure 4.3 The trails created by visitors in Shing Mun Country Park. Figure 4.4 shows the dispersal of litter around the 34 recreation sites, while the type of litter found can be seen in Table 4.2. Among the 34 sites examined, only 9 sites had no sign of litter dispersal, in which 7 of them were picnic sites (site 15, 21, 22, 29, 31, 32). Barbeque sites 7 and 10 were also found without prominent litter dispersing in the surrounding, even though they are designated to cater for intensive recreation use. For those with conspicuous litter disposals, 18 of them had rubbish dispersing 5.5m or less from the site boundary. 5 of them were barbeque sites, while the others were picnic sites. For the 7 sites left, they had litters scattered over 5.5m from site boundary. 4 of them were barbeque sites with 7 to 14.5m of dispersal. However, nearly 10-m dispersal was seen in picnic sites 23 and 25. Also, a maximum of l6-m dispersal was found in picnic site 34, showing a serious littering problem had been encountered around some picnic sites.

Observation of the litter found revealed that most of them were related to visitors' behavior and habits. The majority were plastic bags and those produced after meal. Plastic bags usually appear when people carry food bought from convenient stores and supermarkets. On the other hand, packaging made from paper and plastic to keep the quality of food was usually left around the boundaries of recreation sites. In addition, many of them were empty cans and bottles, resulting from the fact that many visitors bring waters and drinks along with their hiking trips or barbecuing activities. For the minority, they were also commonly used for cleaning (tissue), covering ground or table (newspaper and plastic table cloth), and having meal (plastic fork) during outdoor leisure activities. It was believed that the used glove found around site 16 was left by workers as there were some improvement works launched by the authority during the field visit period.

50 I' ��.-广…> /- •-�-mZ�..\�•、务 乂、 f 優 Kx ^^^^ 戌"lyf^

Figure 4.4 The dispersal of litter (m) from the boundary of each recreation site. Table 4.2 Dispersal and type of litter found around the 34 recreation sites. Site ID Site Type Litter Dispersal Distance (m) | Type of Litter Found : 1 7.0 Plastic bag 2 14.5 Aluminium can 3 ^ Newspaper 4 8.0 一 Plastic bag 5 Barbecue fork 6 BBQ 2.0 ~ Tissue 一

7 / / 一 8 5.0 Battery 9 ^ Food packaging 10 / / — 1 1 Aluminium can 12 Tissue 13 ^ Plastic bag 14 3.5 Plastic fork

15 / / 一 16 ^ Used glove 17 Food packaging 18 4.0 Tissue 19 5.0 Plastic bottle 20 ^ Newspaper 21 / 一 / 22 / — / 23 Picnic 10.0 — Plastic bag 24 / — / 25 9.5 — Drink box 26 1.0 Plastic table cloth 27 ^ Food packaging 28 Newspaper 29 / — / 30 4.0 一 Drink box 31 / — /

32 / 一 / 33 ^ Tissue 34 16.0 I Plastic bag

4.1.2 Patterns from Raster Data Transformation

Since each of the data sets above was in vector data format which was discrete in nature, the raster format of the impact data would be studied to examine their spatial extent in the subsequent portion.

52 Different from trampling and littering, noise can spread through air and have greater dispersal outside recreation sites. As a result, the noise level values of all the sites were incorporated in interpolation. On the other hand, as increases were found in noise level when visitors were present, the difference of noise level was used. Figure 4.5 shows the dispersal of noise impact resulting from interpolation. The deeper the color of the grids, the greater the noise difference and thus a stronger impact from visitor was expected. From the figure, 3 zones appeared in a deeper orange color, suggesting severe noise impacts occurring there. The highest value of 10 was found around recreation site 8，while areas nearby also bore values of 6 or 7. Since the zone was over barbecue sites where greater number of visitors stayed, a higher noise level was expected there.

However, the other two noisy zones were found relatively near to the interior of the park. The first one was found near the Pineapple Dam. Values of 6 to 7 could be observed, as noted in sites 1, 29 and 30. The second one appeared at the north end of the reservoir. Value of 4 was found around the zone, notably in sites 19, 20, 21, 24 and 25. Among these sites, only site 1 was barbeque site, while the others were picnic sites that were large in size and equipped with greater number of facilities. As a result, a large number of visitors preferred to stay in these sites and thus produced a relatively high noise level.

On the other hand, the trails resulting from trampling did not have a spreading characteristic. Thus, the trails were directly converted to raster grids. The pattern of trampling impact was shown in Figure 4.6. All the trails were found near the interior of the park where the picnic sites were located. This could be expected because the area where barbecue sites were situated was highly developed to cater for the great recreation pressure and so not much unspoiled land is left for further destruction by trampling.

53 (身诱講―

1 0 1 2 Kilometers

Figure 4.5 The dispersal ofnoise impact resulting from visitors. 1 0 1 2 Kilometers

Figure 4,6 The pattern of trampling impact. It should be noted that the value of trampling impact is either 1 or 10. It was because the severity of impact by trampling here is determined by the absence and presence of the trails. However, in order to fit into the impact composite map with the other two parameters, the grids where trails lied inside was represented by 10 while 1 meant no trail was found.

For the dispersal of litter, since the extent of litter dispersal was only up to 16m, which was much smaller than the size of a grid cell (100m x 100m), it was not necessary to transform the original dataset through interpolation. They were directly transformed from points to the corresponding grids. The severity and patterns of littering was shown in Figure 4.7. The areas being affected by littering appeared as discrete girds, illustrating the limiting spread of litters around the recreation sites. The heavier littering appeared over the barbecue sites and also western shore of the reservoir, including picnic sites 23，25, 27 and 30.

4.1.3 Composite Impact Level

After transforming the 3 impact parameters into raster data format, a composite impact map was constructed by giving the same weighting to each of the impact. This was performed by adding the values of 3 parameters together, and then taking an average of the sum to achieve a 10-grade scale (Figure 4.8).

It was found that the areas being affected were primarily located around the reservoir, while rest of the park areas remained undisturbed. The areas under visitor impact could be divided into two major zones: the first one included the barbecue region and the western shore of the reservoir, while the second one comprised the picnic sites located around the north end of the reservoir. However, the areas over the eastern shore of reservoir were not much disturbed by recreation activities, except the two grid cells covering picnic sites 15 and 16.

56 =mm

i 0 1 2 Kilometers

Figure 4.7 The dispersal of litter in Shing Mun Country Park, -m 1 0 1 2 Kilometers Figure 4.8 The composite impact map by integrating the 3 impact parameters. For the first impact zone, surprisingly the center of impact was found in picnic region rather than barbecue region. It was speculated that sites 29 and 30 gained higher values among all 3 types of impact, while the barbecue sites were not severe in littering and trampling as good cleansing service was provided in these easily accessible regions while the areas around were much developed that were not attractive for visitors to explore. For the second zone, the center was found around picnic sites 23 to 26. These sites were relatively large and provided with good facilities. As a result, large groups of visitors were usually attracted to stay and perform recreation activities there, which facilitated the spreading of noise and littering to the surrounding. Also, the flat topography there attracted curious individuals to move around.

4.2 Ecological Attributes of Shing Mun Country Park

4.2.1 Vegetation Cover

The classification results, the relevant description and corresponding areas derived from GIS software calculation upon the theme polygons are shown in Table 4.3. The vegetation map was shown in Figure 4.9. Four classes of vegetation were produced with reference to Catt's (1986) description and information from AFCD's homepage (漁農處郊野公園及海岸公園管理局,2002). From the figure, 91% of the park area was covered by vegetation, except the reservoir and the hill ranges at the northeast tip of the park, and along the northern and western portions of the park boundary. Woodland occupied the majority of the vegetated area, nearly 50 % of land area in the park. This might be due to the fact that Shing Mun was one of the major afforestation areas since the end of the Second World War. With the effort of the authority and the natural regeneration and encroachment of the plants, after half of a century, the woodland there have become mature and relatively intact in shape.

59 Table 4.3 The resulting vegetation classes and their relative information. Classes = Vegetation Condition Area(m^) / %~ Enriched or Planted woodland, including Acacia {Acacia confusa), Brisbane Box Woodland {Lophostemon confertus), Chinese Red Pine 6729084 / 47.93 {Pinus massoniana), Paper-Bark Trees {Melaleuca quinq uenei'via) etc. Scrubland ，卯bland composed of shrubs, bushes and 1720543 / 12.25 terns Grassland Hill Grassland on slopes in the higher areas 1177047 / 8.38 ShadowVegetation under shadow and actual 3185364/22.69 composition not known Total Vegetation 八11 of the above classes 12812038/91.26 Cover 严严 Mun / ^ 14039277/ 100 Country Park (* % of area comprised only the area of each vegetation classes within Shing Mun Country to depict the situation of vegetation coverage inside the park.)

Studying the map, it was found that the woodlands concentrated along the north-west coast of the reservoir, and stretching into 3 directions: to the south-west tip of the park over the south-east facing hill flank towards the reservoir main dam; to the north-west tip of the park along the valley where Tai Shing Stream located, up to the peak of Tai Mo Shan; and also to the north-east end over the east-facing hill flank along the valley up to Lead Mine Pass. Within the class woodland, relatively large patches of Paper-Bark Trees were found at the northern tip of the reservoir extending along the Wilson Trail Section 7 near the Shing Mun Arboretum.

Scrubland comprised a smaller proportion of the study area. They appeared as small patches dispersed inside the woodland. Apparently larger patches could only be found over the woodland near picnic sites 29 to 34. In addition, major parts of them were found over the northwest part of the park, on the hillside along the boundaries of the woodland. When the altitude increased, the vegetation class changed from scrubland to hill grassland, until the bare land over the ridge along which the MacLehose Trail Section 8 is located. The above description also revealed the stages in the succession of plant communities, changing from woodland, scrubland, grassland to bare ground with increasing altitude.

60 ^S^m I-.-.-

Figure 4.9. The vegetation1 cover in Shing Mun0 Country Park 1 2 KilometM-8 For the area along the southeast coast of the reservoir, much of the vegetation was cast under shadow. Although woodlands were found near and within the shaded vegetation, it was not conclusive to define the shaded area as woodland. As this occupied over 20 % of the land area, the vegetation map might not be the best one to describe the study site condition, as there was possibility for the shaded area to be a single piece of a certain class or a complex mixture of different plants.

The vegetation map was transformed into raster format to integrate it with biodiversity dataset for determining areas of conservation importance. The transformed map was shown in Figure 4.10. Each vegetation grid was assigned with a value according to their general importance to wild animals and ecosystem. The majority of the park was assigned the value of 3, indicating the areas were covered by woodland. Then, grid cells next to this major class over the western half of the park were labeled as 2, showing the clustering of shrubs. On the other hand, the outermost portions left behind were assigned as 1, showing that grassland occupied only a small proportion within the park area. Also, a large portion with the value ‘1’ over the eastern end was primary vegetation under shadow.

4.2.2 Water Resources

The distribution of streams and rivers was shown in Figure 4.11. For the grid cells with rivers or streams passing through, a value of 1 was being given to the cells. Otherwise, 0 was assigned to indicate the absence of water body. From the map, rivers and streams were found in most of the park area. The park could be regarded as sufficient in water resources.

4.2.3 General Distribution of Wildlife

A general distribution of wildlife flora and fauna was shown in Figure 4.12. Tai Mo Shan Country Park and Kam Shan Country Park were also displayed as both of them are in connection with Shing Mun Country Park on part of park boundaries. A range of phyla were found scattering as point features over the area,

62 1 0 1 2 Kilometers

Figure 4.10 Vegetation map after raster format transformation. 1 0 1 2 Kilometers mFigure 4.11 Rivers and streams running through Shing Mun Country Park Figure 4.12 The occurrence records of wildlife flora andfauna around Shing Mun Country Park. including amphibians, birds, fishes, mammals, reptiles, ants, butterflies, dragonflies, moths, spiders, and freshwater invertebrates, etc. Table 4.4 displays in detail the wildlife occurring in Shing Mun Country Park.

Table 4.4 The number of wildlife occurrence records inside Shing Mun Country Park. The relating number of genus and species of each phylum is also shown to indicate degree of biodiversity. Groups of p. . No. of No. of No. of Wildlife Records Genus Species Invertebrates Ants 100 26 38 Butterflies ~439 75 114 Dragonflies 15 11 11 Moths 118~~ 85 96 — Snails —8—6 6 — Spiders OOP __ Stream Invertebrates* 3 _ - - Vertebrates Amphibians ^ 8 1_3 Birds 26 — 20 — 21 Fishes* 1 1 1 Mammals \3 7 7 Reptiles | 54 | 20 | 23 (Groups with * means no information on genus and species is provided from the original dataset attribute tables)

The area was sustaining a large number of species in butterflies, moths and ants for the group of invertebrates. A large number of tree species and rare plant records appearing at the north of the reservoir showed a good coverage has been provided to plants species by the park. Nevertheless, a smaller number of vertebrates could be seen there, majority of them were amphibians and reptiles. To give a better depiction on distribution pattern, the phyla above were divided into 2 major categories: invertebrates and vertebrates were shown in Figures 4.13 and 4.14. In Figure 4.13, the occurrence records of invertebrates were found widely scattered over Shing Mun Country Park. Majority of them were butterflies. No noticeable clustering were seen inside the park area, except the downstream area of the Tai Shing Stream, where ants, butterflies, dragonflies, snails and stream invertebrates were also rich there (some groups were not shown as labels blocked the others on the same location when map overlaying). The distribution of vertebrates around the park was shown in Figure 4.14. Most of the records of occurrence were found dispersed over the areas above the northwest coast of the reservoir. Similar to the invertebrate distribution

66 邏 3 0 3 6 Wlomfttors Figure 4.13 The Occurrences of Invertebrates in Shing Mun Country Park 3 0 3 6 Kilometers

Figure 4.14 The Occurrences of Vertebrates in Shing Mun Country Park. map, downstream area of Tai Shing Stream was also rich in vertebrates such as amphibians, mammals and reptiles. Although there are still large areas with relatively low biodiversity, these are probably essential as connectors for 'hotpots' of wild animals or habitats for wide-ranging species.

4.2.4 Conservation Significance on the Number of Species found

Figure 4.15 displayed the map of species number. The central part and the southwest part of the park were comparatively high in species number, with 60 to 80 species found in each of the grid cell. Areas around picnic sites 21, 22 and 23, and also at the middle of the western shore, which was about 200m north of site 28, were the richest in species number. About 130 to 160 animal species could be found there. The animal groups appearing included reptiles, amphibians, butterflies, dragonflies, ants and snail. These groups were usually small in size while great in species variety. High in species number revealed that the areas should be habitats for these groups. As these small animals were usually small-range species, these areas should be carefully monitored and managed, otherwise habitat loss and then species loss would be appeared. Other than these areas, the rest of the park was comparatively low in species number, and the species found were usually large-range species (usually birds). Otherwise, a few small patches with relatively greater species number were found scattered over the area. Butterflies and reptiles were the common wildlife occurring there.

4.2.5 Conservation Significance on the Number of Class found

In Figure 4.16, the areas of the country park was graded by the number of classes of animal found. Other than the portions of the park with more species appearing as mentioned in the previous section, almost the whole western half of the park also had relatively more animal classes. Nevertheless, the hot spots for high class number were also found over the areas, same as those with greatest species occurrence. The north and north-west of the reservoir were still the hot spot of wildlife animals. 5 to 6 classes were found simultaneously over those small patches

69 of land. This reflected that zones with the greatest number of species might also be diverse in animal class number.

4.2.6 Conservation Significance on the Number of Trophic Level within Ecosystem

The map of conservation importance in terms of roles in ecosystem was shown in Figure 4.17. Over half of the park areas had the value of 5, especially those in the central, western and southern parts. Some small patches with the value of 6 were found scattered over these places. On the other hand, the north-east portion of the park was found having the value of 3. The larger scope of lower value was resulted by the occurrence of higher animals like birds and mammals with larger home range. They needed to travel around to search for food sources. Smaller animals, however, were limited to discrete habitats around the park areas, resulting in individual spots of high value.

4.2.7. Composite Conservation Significance

After gathering different aspects about natural resources, it became feasible to identify the areas of conservation importance. In Figure 4.18, the overall situation for wildlife conservation value based on the number of animal species found was shown. The map was displayed with different color ramps according to the type of vegetation covers for the purpose of easier visual identification. It was found that the blue zone (vegetation) occupied mainly of the inner areas, while the other colors were scattered around the border areas. For the blue zone, those having '1’ at the middle digit took up major part of the park due to the stream system spreading extensively over the interior zone. The two patches in deepest blue occurred at the northwest shore of the reservoir showed the most valuable areas for conservation when considering number of wild species. It was because the highest number of species were found within the wooded areas when comparing to the whole park.

70 1 0 1 2 Kilometers

Figure 4.15 Areas of conservation value according to the rmmber of animal species in Shing Mm Country Park 1 0 1 2 Kilometers

Figure 4.16 Areas of conservation value according to number of animal classes in Shing Mun Country Park. -^―—^ KHomttw®

FigureM 4.17 Areas of conservation value according to trophic levelB of animal species in ecosystem in Shing Adun Country Park. 1 0 1 2 Kilometers

Figure 4.18 Map of conservation value based on the number of animal species found When considering the number of animal classes occurring in a unit area, as illustrated by Figure 4.19, the resulting map was a little bit different from the previous one. The deepest blue color appeared over the whole west flank of the country park, up to the northwest tip near Tai Mo Shan. The situation was contributed by wider dispersal of cold-blooded vertebrates classes then invertebrates with limited mobility, while also the extensive occurrence of birds and mammals among the western part of the park. This revealed that although the areas at the west of the reservoir might not support a great number of species at the same time, the biodiversity there was still high. Many animal classes could still be observed around the region. To sustain or even flourish the biodiversity, special care and management practices upon the places might be necessary.

Figure 4.20 shows the situation of the park when the completeness of the ecosystem, or at least the hierarchy of the food chain, was considered. Other than within or around the reservoir, most of the areas contained the value of '6' in the third digit and were shown in the deepest color in corresponding color ramps. Four different trophic levels could be found in many places, especially the western and southern portion. In the area, a relatively complete collection among the trophic levels can be found, from plants being producers to the warm-blooded higher consumers. The occurrence of cold-blooded invertebrates with wider distribution and the large-ranged warm-blooded vertebrates occupying the top place along the food chain there results in a large extent of areas containing a relatively high score. After putting different aspects on wildlife together, a general impression about the natural resources inside Shing Mun Country Park was obtained. Eventually, the conflict investigation process could then be performed.

75 Figure 4.19 Map of conservation value based on number of animal classes found. 1 0 1 2 Kilometers

Figure 4.20 Map of conservation value based on the trophic levels of wild animal inhabitants. Chapter 5. Discussion

5.1 Potential Association between Recreation and Conservation

In the last chapter, the concept of spatial quality was applied upon the study of visitor impacts and ecological attributes in Shing Mun Country Park. The distribution patterns of both visitor impacts and wildlife species were displayed in a variety of maps. These provide necessary information to planners and park managers in evaluation of present management strategies or formulating future management plan. Subsequently, disturbance resulting from recreational activities performed by visitors and conservation significance of the country park were quantified and expressed as raster data model. Nevertheless, as both issues bear spatial characteristics, bringing them together may cast a light on park managers who need to strive for a balance between recreation and conservation.

A major issue that many park managers concern about is how severe the conflict between recreation and conservation is. One aspect to reveal the conflict level is to examine degree of overlapping between the areas affected by visitor impacts and those worth conserving. The impact parameters resulting from recreational activities and conservation value of the country park were quantified and the spatial patterns have been displayed. Subsequent raster data format transformation allows combination of the two aspects. As a consequence, the impact parameters and natural resources were bought together to see if it is possible to shed a light on park managers who need to balance recreation and conservation.

If the conservation value of a unit area was high, it should be more sensitive to the influence resulted from visitor impact, the resulted conflicts should be proportional to both severity of impacts and conservation importance. As a result, grid values of the 2 different aspects were multiplied in order to illustrate the conflicts. The integration was applied to all three situations concerning wildlife animal conservation (i.e., species number, class number and trophic level). A scale illustrating the resulting degree of recreation-conservation conflict was exhibited in

78 the Table 5.1, while the maps showing degree of conflict according to the 3 different conservation aspects were shown in Figures 5.1 to 5.3 respectively.

Table 5.1 Potential range of recreation-consei-vation composite scale resulting from disturbance scale and comervation scale. Disturbance Scale Range Conservation Scale Range Composite Scale Range 1 -8 ~“ ^^^0-319 (Species no.) 0-2552 ~^— ^^—— 0-316 (Class no.) 0 - 2528 0-316 (Trophic level) 0 - 2528

It was found that the patterns of conflict were similar to each other among the three conservation viewpoints. From the 3 figures, the western shore of the reservoir, starting from the Pineapple Dam to the downstream area of the Tai Shing Stream, was the major conflict zone. Recreation sites 23, 24, 26, 27 and 30 were found locating within the zone. It was believed that these sites were the sources of conflicts, i.e. being located at areas of high conservation importance while the impacts resulted from visitors were severe at the same time. Otherwise, most of the park areas and those specially designated for barbecue use were found low in conflict.

In general, areas where higher conflicts were observed were around the road surrounding the reservoir. Many animals are very sensitive in perception of the presence of visitors and their activities. For noise, the animal hears and perceives human although there is no contact, even visitors are at a distance from the animal that is out of its vision range. On the other hand, trampling impacts are restricted in extent, usually around recreation sites. On the other hand, trails from trampling were usually found in areas with gentle landscape. This could be depicted by the sparse contour line pattern over the areas in the map. The gentle slope provided an incentive to the visitors so that they could spend less effort but be able to explore the natural environment around. The trails caused by trampling together with the roads and footpath network indicate the possibilities that people follow these trails and visit the areas around. Thus, the trails and roads should also be treated as potential sources of the disturbance to sensitive wild animals.

79 Some animals habituate to visitors and their disturbance if they find the impact level or distance between visitors and them not harmful. The habituation, however, is breakable. At the downriver of the Tai Shing Stream, the landscape was also gentle. This gave attractiveness to visitors, especially those interested in exploring stream landscape, as they could spend less effort but be able to explore the natural environment around. More importantly, the wooded area through which the stream passing through was high in biodiversity. Although close to sites 23 and 24, animals there may have habituated to the presence of visitors walking along the road. However, if hikers left the designated trails, animals gain the sense of threat and the habituation would be broken down (MacArthur et al” 1982). Greater harassment to the animals will be resulted.

Four classes of invertebrates were found in the woodland (Table 5.2). The majority were moths. 58 records were found in the downstream area. 24 species of butterflies and 5 dragonfly species were also recorded there. Lastly, a beetle also treated the stream environment as its preferred habitat. In a foreign study, the number and diversity of grasshoppers and crickets were found dropping drastically in mountain pastures of the French Alps, where only diffuse trampling occurred even no visible changes was found in vegetation (Vosin, 1986). If visitors enter into the area, the composition and volume of insects mentioned above would be drastically changed by the trampling impacts.

In field visit, a major category of litters found around recreation sites were food packaging. These usually contain food residues inside. Availability of waste or dropped human food modifies small animals' habitats. Birds, mammals or insects are attracted by the food residues since these are treated as food sources by many animals. The food materials may be positive to their survival, but also negative to other aspects of the animals. The easily obtainable, more nutritious food may weaken the predating or foraging capability of the attracted animals. Also, abandoned food litter may lead animals leaving their shelters and consequently increases the risk that the animal exposes to its predator. On the other hand, food residues also change the species richness in the place (Garton et al” 1977). Some shyer species cannot avail the extra food and thus decline in number while the opportunists, such as rodents, would increase.

80 Table 5.2 The invertebrates found around the downstream area of Tai Shing Shek Kan, including Moths, Dragon flies. Stream Invertebrates and Butterflies. Group Family No. of records Moths Arctiidae 5 Geometridae 17 Limacodidae 1 Lymantriidae 3 Noctuidae 23 Notodontidae 3 Pyralidae 3 Sphingidae 2 Thyrididae 1

Class Species Dragonflies Agriomorpha fusca Asiagomphus hainanenes Euphaea decorate Idionyx victor Lyriothemis elegantissima

Class Family Species

^Ba^aass^^B^^B^^^^^HSM^K^as^^^^sK Ma^^a- r m .i^a^^ag' -i p " .ne^a^^au 'iTn.i'i •••_，— i • — • . •‘ • -^^^^^ssa^ • • • • • i • r • • — ,••• ‘ •••—_ -- - •• Stream Psephenidae Sinopsephenus Invertebrate

81 Class Species Common Name - | - _ • --• Butterflies A thy ma nefte Colour Sergeant Charaxes bernardus Tawny Rajah Cupha erymanthis Rustic Dercas verhuelli Tailed Sulfur Euploea core Common Crow Euploea midamus Blue-spotted Crow Graphium agamemnm Tailed Greed Jay G rap Ilium doson Common Jay Graphium sarpedon Common Bluebottle lamhrix salsala Chestnut Bob Ideopsis similes Blue Glassy Tiger Limenitis sulpitia Five-dot Sergeant Melanitis phedima Dark Evening Brown Mycalesis mineus Darkbrand Bush Brown Pantoporia hordonia Common Lascar Papilio helenus Red Helen Papilio polytes Common Mormon Papilio protenor Dark Mormon Polytremis luhricans Contiguous Swift branded Polyura nepenthes Shan Nawab Symhrenthia lilaea Common Jester Tagiades litigiosus White Snow Flat Ypthima haldus Common Six Wing

82 1 0 1 2 Kilometers

Figure 5.1 Conflict between Recreation Conservation based on no. of animal species. ip« F

1 0 1 2 Wlometeri

Figure 5.2 Conflict between Recreation and Conservation based on no. of animal classes. PIT—

i^fc纏

Fi^re 5.3 Conflict between Recreation and Conservation based on trophic level of wild animals.“ 5.2 Park Design

5.2.1 Zoning and Site Location

The small size of Hong Kong precludes a separation into national parks primarily for conservation as in foreign countries, and country parks primarily for recreation. In order to achieve a balance between conflicting objectives. Zoning has been applied in Hong Kong to categorize a country park into three categories for different purposes.

The recreation zone aims at concentrating the mass of visitors and restricting the spread of impact, which is facilitated by facility-provision and road network. The less accessible areas are usually treated as the wilderness zone for buffering purpose. Conservation zones are those with ecological importance while access is discouraged. The remoter, more extensive countryside is now designated for conservation.

The recreation sites are deliberately located to concentrate visitors within recreation zone. In Shing Mun Country Park, barbecue sites were restricted to the southern side of the reservoir so that the rich vegetation in the inner part could be free from fire risk. On the other hand, picnic sites were also designated along public roads. It is because users have a strong inclination to stay near the main roads and near public transport nodes. Conclusively, The spatial clustering of visitors is largely supply-generated and the spatial pattern of visitor impacts is then predictable. Siting of recreation sites in a country park properly or not is thus the major factor responsible for the balance between recreation and conservation.

Large groups of visitors were found in some picnic sites (e.g. sites 21, 30, and 34). In addition, high noise levels (over 60 dBA Leq) were also recorded in some of them. This reflected that part of the visitors patronizing the park left the highly impacted zone and their disturbance spread into the interior of the park. Fortunately, visitors still clustered in the picnic sites provided by the authority.

However, the choice of locations of these well-equipped sites was also crucial. It was because they might intensify visitor impacts if they were located near to areas

86 rich in biodiversity. For example, 15 picnic sites were situated along the western coast of the reservoir, where a relatively abundant wildlife occurrence was observed. These sites became the sources of visitor disturbance towards the animals living around, as illustrated in previous chapters.

During some critical moment, for example, the presence of visitors during mating or breeding seasons may cause tremendous adverse impacts to certain species. These include reduction in vigor and reproduction success, or abandonment of nest and newly bom animals (Liddle, 1997). Restriction of entry in certain period in a year critical to some species, for example, winter as breeding season for some migratory birds, can be adopted as a management tool on visitor flow. The flow of visitors could also be reduced by minimizing the amount of facilities provided in each sites. In the worst case, if negative effects have been observed upon the animals in concern, the closure of sites should be considered.

Recreation sites 16, 23，24, 26, 27 and 30 were sources of the heaviest impacts among those on the western coast. To model the effects of site closure, the records of noise and litter impacts from these sites were removed and the degree of conflict with areas of conservation importance was studied again. Also, the trails from trampling near these sties were also ignored during this estimation as they were possibly caused by visitors staying around these sites.

Figures 5.4 shows the composite impact map neglecting the influences of the stated sites. Subsequently, the resulting pattern of recreation impacts was combined with maps of conservation importance to see the change in potential conflicts between the two aspects. The results were shown in Figures 5.5 to 5.7. After removing the effects of those sites, a few discrete grids possessing intermediate conflict level were found around the north of the reservoir.

87 In fact, a number of sites locating over the eastern part of the park were underused. This was shown by a smaller number of visitors encountered among them during the field study. There were also only sparse wildlife occurrence records found. As a result, it was expected that small amount of conflict would be raised even huge amount of visitors concentrating and performing recreational activities there. As the first priority should be put to protect the important natural resources and keep the integrity of the ecosystem, it became worthwhile to shift the crowd from these problem-causing sites to the underused ones.

To create new 'honeypots' upon these sites by channeling visitors from the overused ones, transport and facility provision to underused sites should be improved. This can be performed by expanding site area and putting more facilities to receive the visitors flowing from the opposite side of the park. As the sites were located at a higher altitude, it was suggested that the vegetation in these sites with lower conservation value could be modified or cleared in order to provide an excellent view of the reservoir, which was the incentive to attract visitors staying within the sites.

5.2.2 Road ami Footpath Network

To cater for ease movement of visitors, the authority constructs roads and footpaths within country parks. Some of them were paved to facilitate transportation of management teams or even rescue vehicles. However, paved tracks can be barriers of animal dispersal, especially flightless ground-dwelling invertebrates. These reduces the rate of crossing of arthropods while stimulated their longitudinal movement along the trails. As they spent energy for the frequent movement parallel to roads, the effective dispersal range was decreased, and it was probably that the insects exhausted their energy before they can reach another suitable habitat. As a result, paved roads can cause restriction of the animals within patches of land, causing habitat fragmentation.

88 The paved roads inside the country park were illustrated in Figure 5.8. The park was in fact not seriously fragmented. The land on the eastern part of the park was strictly divided into 4 smaller patches and thus the vegetation over them became separated from each other. According to the biodiversity data, the areas had a sparse wildlife occurrence. Thus, the influence should be negligible. Over the western half, generally the woodland was quite intact. There was, however, a branch road stretching into the core of the woodland over the northwest coast of the reservoir. Although it did not cut off the vegetation, animals needed to spend more energy to reach the end of the road before they could go to the other side.

In addition, the road which led people to Lead Mine Pass near the head of the reservoir cut the vegetated area at the north of the reservoir perpendicularly. This retarded animals in the wooded area at downstream of Tai Shing Stream from reaching another stream flowing along the paved road. As a result, the water supply and habitats around were not utilized by the animals, and competition for resources in the area they appear was not reduced. Nevertheless, removal of concrete surface or changing the whole road network into semi-natural footpath is not advisable. It is because the road serves as a forest track in services including fire fighting, maintenance, etc. The concrete surface allows smooth movement of vehicles in concern.

Footpaths with unpaved cover can also be harmful if they are not wisely located. Many people visiting country parks prefer traveling around the footpaths provided. The popularity of the activity could be shown by the international campaigns organized by the authority to promote the message "hiking is fun" (AFCD, 2002a). The recent trend in eco-tourism and pursuits in features of ecological importance has been undoubtedly encouraging more people to leave from the crowd of visitors.

In those pursuits, visitors are allowed to move freely within the comprehensive road and trail network penetrating the park area. When they walk along the trails, noise, and litters if worse, are spread into the interior areas which are treated as buffering or even conservation zones. The penetration of people deep into the core area can cause disturbance and harassment towards animals that may be

89 Figure 5.4 Modeled situations of the visitor impact map after removal of the 3 recreational impacts. 1 0 1 2 KllomeUrf

Figure 5.5 Potential conflict between recreation and conservation based on species number after removal of the 3 recreational impacts. 1 0 i 2 Kllonwter«

Figure 5.6 Potential conflict between recreation and conservation based on class number after removal of the 3 recreational impacts. 钃 0 1 2 Kilometers figure 5.7 Potential conflict between recreation and conservation based on trophic levels after removal of the 3 recreational impacts. much greater as they get used to a quiet and peace environment and are not habituated to the presence of visitors. Also, people traveling around the park along the network are usually curious about and fond of exploring the natural environment. The extensive footpath network may lead them to the surrounding of sensitive areas that may be damaged by unintentional intrusion. With the aid of ecological baseline data, however, the influence on the surrounding areas by any footpath segment can be evaluated and possible solution like putting warning signs for discouraging visitors' patronage can be considered.

In conclusion, the distribution pattern of visitors is largely a result of the design of country parks. The recreation sites and facilities provided inside provide the incentives to attract the majority of visitors staying and performing recreation activities there. The road and footpath network controls the flow of visitors travelling around the park areas and thus limits their movement. Nevertheless, if the design of the park is not carefully planned that allowing the overlapping of recreation pattern with ecologically fragile areas, conflicts between recreation and conservation then occur.

94 mFigure 5.8 The distribution of paved roads and footpaths inside the study area. 5.3 Problems in Country Park Management

5.3.1 Recreation Management

To achieve objectives of catering the publics' need of recreation and conserving precious wildlife resource are the major tasks in the planning and management of country parks. Nevertheless, conservation is imperative to recreation because the quality of the latter hinges on that of an unspoiled countryside (Lee, 1993). The relatively unspoiled scenery with the limited or absence of human development is important to outdoor experience and then visitors' satisfaction. Since most of the undeveloped land in Hong Kong has been designated and further designation is difficult, the management of existing resources becomes the direction of future country park policy. As a result, studying this urban-fringe country park with a history of nearly 30 years can be treated an evaluation demonstration of existing park system.

Collection of litter produced by recreationists is a heavy management task. In addition to high visitor flow and amount of litter left (Country and Marine Parks Authority, 2002a), the hilly relief causes difficulties in litter collection. Nevertheless, the source of the waste materials is still visitors. Changing their behaviors and perceptions is the ultimate way to lessen the problem.

The identification of heavy visitor impacts around picnic sites near the inner areas of Shing Mun Country Park can be a result of changed mode of recreation recently. In the past, visitors were restricted to main road and popular, well-equipped barbecue sites by the concern about security, unfamiliarity with or ignorance about the countryside. However, the better transmission of information by provision of maps and signs, and also promotion of eco-tourism and natural admiring in recent years, encourages visitors to explore around. According to the visitor statistics, the number of visitors going to the country park is increasing in recent years (Figure 2.2). If the crowdedness in recreation sites is not managed properly, visiting the countryside will be merely a shift fi-om the urban crowdedness to a rural version of crowding with a background of green hills. More and more people perform dispersed pursuits like hiking, photography, nature or wildlife studies which spread visitors and

96 the corresponding impacts into the remoter countryside. This can drastically reduce revitalizing function of the countryside (Lee, 1993).

5.3.2 Wildlife Conservation

The best option for conservation is leaving the ecosystem undisturbed and unmanaged. However, this is not suitable in Hong Kong because completely undisturbed ecosystems are relatively rare. Efforts are thus necessary to protect the limited and precious resources. Nevertheless, there are two major deficiencies from the viewpoint of local conservation efforts (Dudgeon & Corlett, 1999). First of all, there is so far no clear and long-term conservation policy. Conservation efforts are limited to some individual items such as the control of recreational impacts, fire prevention and tree planting. The areas designated for conservation are originally planned to fulfill other needs, such as education and recreation, and thus many ecologically important areas are not embraced inside the conservation scheme.

In addition, the protection of important areas or ecological hotspots should not be based on an ad hoc fashion. Many patches of land have been identified by the presence of a large number of species or important habitats. When managing these areas, the coverage of species across an entire network of protected areas should be considered, rather than selecting sites based solely on individual merit (Woodhouse et cil, 2000). From the conservation viewpoint, Hong Kong should be treated as a whole and each of the sites should be brought into a network. In the study area, the patches at the northern end and in the middle of western shore have been identified as ecologically rich areas. On the other hand, there are also some smaller spots with rich arthropod occurrence scattering over the park. To manage these areas, connections between these sites should be ensured. This can be done by providing passages such as narrow but complete vegetation strips linking the spots to allow free movements of animals. However, the road and footpath networks provided by the authority may block or cut the connections among the areas of concern. The effect of road network will be discussed in subsequent session.

97 Nevertheless, country parks still comprise the largest proportion of protected land. In fact, many areas with relatively low biodiversity are essential because they can act as buffers shielding the visitor impacts to those areas with conservation values. Undoubtedly, there is much wildlife inhabiting inside too. To wisely utilize the limiting resources and evaluate the degree of conflict between visitors and wild species, identifying areas for protection is of primary importance in a basic park planning and management framework. In addition to identifying animals and habitat worth preserving, the behavior of certain species is important in conservation consideration. Among the 7 species of mammals found in the park, only the primates, Rhesus macaque, love to appear under daylight. They are sociable and intelligent and thus confident enough to perform their daily activities during daytime. For the other 6 species, however, they exhibit nocturnal behavior. The animals usually live on their own and forage at night. The nocturnal characteristics reflected that these animals were probably adversely impacted by visitors in daytime and thus turned to move around and seek for food when visitors leave the area by the evening. Since these large, sight-attracting animals could not be seen by visitors during their trip, many people think themselves are the only group that the countryside is serving.

5.4 Implications from the Study

5.4.1 Mode of Recreation

The rich wildlife resources found in the Shing Mun Country Park can in fact be adopted as means to develop new modes of outdoor recreation. Since the vegetation there was relatively intact and a large amount of wild animals were found in the northwest of the reservoir, this could be used as the resources and attractiveness to visitors who are interested in nature admiring and eco-tourism. In recent years, there has been a trend among Hong Kong people to perform leisure walking, hiking and eco-tourism in the countryside. The authority also launched international campaigns to promote the message "hiking is fun" in response to public's need (AFCD, 2002a). The conspicuous species, such as butterflies, birds and small mammals found around recreation sites are of central importance to the satisfaction level of visitors.

98 Rather than restricting from areas of rich wildlife occurrence that suggested in previous sessions, visitors can be encouraged to get closer to them. Nevertheless, proper management should be carried out upon eco-tourisms, or the fragile wildlife will be easily spoiled. Guided tours or workshops should be provided to visitor about how one should behave when performing eco-tourisms, such as visiting in small group and wearing appropriate clothes. Also, information from signboards to education center there should be enhanced to give visitors about the types and characteristics of the wildlife can be found so that they can prepare themselves to behave well and wait for the chances to get contact with these amazing creatures in nature. This would greatly increase the satisfaction with the eco-tourists, because the natural scene and wildlife there were the core of these types of pursuits. The authority can also be benefited because only a smaller amount of facilities are required comparing to the current facility provision in the park. Some resting points with some tables and benches are all these groups of visitors need.

Nevertheless, the encouragement of dispersed pursuits can result in further intensification of trampling impact in the park. Due to visitors' inclination to explore the surrounding, the vegetation and soil in the vicinity can be damaged. These damaged points may create new open spaces, which could attract visitation by other recreationists, and the degradation would be intensified continuously. So, the most important thing is to avoid lateral expansion into the trailside zones. One of the best ways to do this is to keep trailside zone rough and natural. This can keep hikers on the designated trails. The greater the contrast between the trail and the trailside zone, in terms of ease of walking, the easier it will be to avoid expansion of the highly disturbed tread (Hammitt & Cole, 1998).

5.4.2 Importance of Baseline Studies

Actually, any evaluation and recommendation of park management, or even the design of country parks, is only feasible if comprehensive baseline information about the environment and wildlife have been provided. This gives the reference to any assessment of the potential impact resulting from recreation activities and decision making about improvement work becomes informed. As a result, to

99 examine the species diversity found inside an area is of major importance prior to planning of any conservation or recreation strategy.

Prioritization of area for conservation is the main issue among foreign park or natural resource managers before decisions on development or resource exploitation are made. This prevents the sensitive areas being damaged or disturbed by recreation, construction work or even industries (Lathrop & Bognar, 1998; Funk et al” 1999; Lenton et al., 2000). On the other hand, the utilization of resources by managing authorities can be maximized when a network of sites representing a larger species number is formulated (Woodhouse et al., 2000). However, such attempt is not possible in local situation. Because of historical factors, the design of many country parks in Hong Kong was to cater recreation need from the public (Jim, 1987a; Lee, 1993). Even though Shing Mun Country Park consists of 1400 hectare, only a 1.4- hectare SSSI (fimg shui woodland) in the north of the reservoir, and the arboretum are designated for strict conservational purpose. A considerable amount of hilly land is still used for recreation. This shows that high-altitude habitats with little development value were the major protected areas inside the park (Yip et al., 2004).

Nonetheless, the necessity of performing ecological baseline studies has been recognized by some local researchers, either concerning the biodiversity of the whole territory or specific animal class (Dudgeon & Corlett, 1999; Lai et al” 2002). The role of such information in evaluating local protected area system was demonstrated by Yip et al. (2004). AFCD eventually realizes the importance of such kind of baseline studies and plans to carry out ecological surveys in some country parks to supplement the present information (®果日幸艮� ,2002).

On the other hand, it should be noted that different species of wildlife have different tolerances for interactions with humans. Even within a species, tolerance level for interaction varies across the time of year, breeding season, animal's age, habitat type, etc. With the aid of survey data, park managers can identify the species found in the park and also their specific requirement on habitats, their own breeding seasons and so on. As a consequence, specific management efforts can be put on unique species, such as those being graded as endangered.

100 5.5 Recommendations for CountryPark Management

The country park system has inherent deficiency itself. It can be regarded as the government's response to increasing demand for outdoor recreation pursuits. Protection of wildlife and landscape are only additional function of the system. Nevertheless, conservation of natural environment should be regarded as the primary objective in the future. It is because natural environment cannot be preserved by the concept of amenity conservation while satisfactory recreation experience also depends on a well-preserved nature. The existing resources should be carefully monitored and actively managed through means like habitat enhancement or restriction of entry. These practices are important to the local authority because of limited land areas while a large portion of countryside has been put under the scope of protected areas.

The spatial qualities of both visitors and wildlife resources should be considered in the management framework. The dispersal of the disturbance and also the occurrence of the animals and plants in concern should be realized so that evaluation of the parks' performances on the pre-defined objectives, including recreation, conservation, education and so on, can be performed. Data manipulation and analysis was performed by GIS to facilitate recreation and conservation management practices in this study. With the aid of the software, areas of conservation value and those being adversely affected by impact were identified, and removal of identified conflicting sites was modeled. The trial indicated the feasibility of performing data analysis and display to help decision making of park management practice, providing proposal of alternatives in recreational sites relocation, and estimating the influence of proposed modification.

The current study demonstrated the importance of baseline studies on wildlife resource in park management formulation. From the study, baseline information obtained from an existing biodiversity survey was utilized. Thorough baseline studies should be performed before designation of a country park as a potential impact assessment. In the case of Hong Kong, the framework of country parks has already existed. Nevertheless, baseline study is still necessary as it provides the background information of the park's natural resources. Identifying areas of conservation

101 importance and then evaluation on park design could not be done before a thorough understanding of the ecological value of the target sites was made. Since natural resources are dynamic in nature, the authority should formulate a systematic ecological survey to gain data on previously not surveyed groups, and update the information for the existing ones fi-equently for the purpose of revealing the wildlife situations from time to time.

The attitudes of visitors towards the natural environment and towards countryside recreation will have a part to play in the planning and management of country parks. Thrower (1984) emphasized the role of education in park management practices. It is because unrestricted and uninformed recreational use can destroy the countryside and conservation becomes impossible if no proper education is given to the public. Environmental education should begin outdoors in the environment and country parks should be treated as outdoor laboratories and living museums. Environmental education and countryside activities should be launched in visitor centers or even inside country parks more frequently to convey the messages of ethics and concerns on conservation. However, environmental education was found inadequate in Hong Kong. The primary efforts have been made by some environmental awareness groups. It is important to arouse the public's concerns and involvement in natural conservation.

Littering and damages on vegetation are usually resulted in uncooperative visitors violating the law. Although some cases may be results of carelessness or lack of related knowledge among visitors, punishment in form of fine and imprisonment can still be an effective means to control the problem. Rather than simply enacted, law and legislation should be properly enforced by park managers and wardens to reduce these impacts. Enforcement should be carried out along with environmental education as such a 'hard' measure can discourage people from violating the law while help them to understand and accept the message from the 'soft' one.

Lastly, other than being preserved, the rich wildlife resources found inside country park areas can be treated as incentives to promote more dispersed pursuits like eco-tourisms, natural photography, etc. A change in the mode of recreation into these nature-admiring ones can assist in reduction of visitor impacts and gaining the

102 public's concern on our precious natural resources. Nevertheless, some fragile habitats and rare species should gain special care. To protect high conservation value areas, access should be restricted by means like limited construction of footpaths or temporal closure of areas nearby. On the other hand, withholding information of the presence of precious wildlife prevents visitations due to curiosity or deliberate capture.

103 Chapter 6. Conclusion

6.1 Summary of Findings

The distribution patterns of visitor impacts and ecological attributes in Shing Mun Country Park were examined in the study. Such an attempt was trying to incorporate spatial qualities in recreation and conservation management. It was found that the distribution of visitors and corresponding impacts was confined to the recreation sites and road network provided by the authority. The inclination of visitors to stay around the facilities provided made visitor impacts predictable. These supply-generated patterns show the park design and facility provision a useful mean in regulating recreation and resulting impacts. By controlling the locations of recreation sites, the disturbance pattern could be altered.

Nevertheless, siting of facilities and recreation sites is crucial to co-existence of both visitors and wildlife. If these are not carefully planned, conflict between the two aspects can be resulted. The case happens when there is no baseline study on wildlife resources of the areas in concern prior to the development of the park and thus the decision of park design is not informed. The situation of natural resources was disclosed by studying vegetation covers from remotely sensed imagery and wildlife occurrence records from existing dataset. Most of the park areas were covered by trees. The climax class among vegetation succession is desired habitats for a variety of wild species. Being an important afforested area before, a diverse fauna were sustained by the rich and mature vegetation in Shing Mun Country Park. The majority of animals were found in an intact patch of trees in the north of the reservoir, where the Tai Shing Stream provides fresh water resources in the area.

Maps of areas with conservation value were produced by integrating the natural components stated. By comparing the overlapping of the extent of visitor impacts resulting leisure activities and the areas of conservation importance, conflicts did existed between in two issues. The western shore of the Shing Mun Reservoir, starting from the Pineapple Dam to the downstream area of the Tai Shing Stream, was the major conflict zone. Picnic sites 23, 24, 26, 27 and 30 were believed to be

104 the major source of conflicts. Interestingly, the conflict zone did not appear upon barbecue sites which were considered as the impact zones to retain the crowds and their impacts traditionally. This revealed an increase in visitors' interests in more dispersed pursuits than staying in 'honeypots'. Nevertheless, a low degree of conflict was observed upon a large extent of the park areas. Also, several recreation sites situating on the east of the reservoir seemed to be underused, as illustrated by the fewer visitors encountered and relatively lower impacts recorded during the field visit. By providing necessary improvement works, the crowds in the high-conflict zone can be channelled to these underused sites and the pressures of both recreation facilities and wildlife resources can be lessened.

On the other hand, the rich wildlife resources can be treated as means to develop new modes of outdoor recreation. The relatively intact vegetation and a large amount of wild animals in the park can be used as attractiveness to visitors who are interested in nature admiring. Change in behavior and attitude among visitors can help the authority in managing and conserving the countryside. On the other hand, comprehensive baseline information about the environment and wildlife should be firstly acquired. This gives the reference to any assessment of the potential impact resulting from recreation activities and decision making about improvement work becomes informed.

6.2 Limitations of the Study

In the present study, the spatial qualities of visitor impacts were revealed by measuring and displaying certain measurable indicators. Noise has been adopted as one of the component impact parameters. It is a commonly encountered impact in country parks and easily quantified. However, the major area to be improved on using this parameter is no direct relationship was established between noise level and the sensitive receivers, i.e. both visitors and wildlife animals. A noisy environment is unwelcome to anybody who is trying to seek relaxation in the countryside. However, the meaning of "noisy" is different from individual. As a result, the levels that specific sensitive receivers consider the environment noisy should be determined, or the degree of impact cannot be fiilly deduced.

105 In the part concerning trampling impact, the length and pattern of the trails were illustrated. This can elucidate the spread of visitors and their corresponding impact into the wild environment. Nevertheless, the degree of this specific impact has not been shown. It is because the major consequence of trampling is resulted from the mechanical force of footsteps. Continuous trampling results in soil compaction, which in turn impairs plant root system and retards regeneration of vegetation cover over the disturbed area. As a result, if no soil parameter was examined, the degree of this impact cannot be indicated and subsequent improvement or habitat enhancement cannot be formulated.

An arbitrary scale with 10 steps was adopted in composite maps of impact and conservation importance. This provided the same numerical basis to combine parameters in different nature and format before. However, the level of importance for a place on conservation issue or degree of influence by recreation might not be fully represented by such a simple algebraic expression. For example, the effect of noise was less concerned in the inner areas. It is because visitor may expect to gain relaxation from the quiet and harmony of the nature. On the other hand, the presence of rare species in a unit area was not taken into account in wildlife conservation. It should be bom in mind that not every component parameters bear the same importance when concerning different management objectives.

In proposing modification of recreation site location, the possible consequence of abandonment was modelled by removing the impact recorded to mimic the situation. However, the shift of visitors and also the spread of corresponding impacts have not been counted in the estimation. If these sites are closed, visitors will move to sites nearby to perform leisure activities. As a result, the increase in impact level within these sites should also be put under consideration during modelling.

In manipulating satellite imagery, the high proportion of shadow caused difficulties in interpretation of vegetation cover. This was resulted from the acquisition time of the image by the satellite. The image was acquired in the morning so that the sunlight irradiates over the ground at a smaller incident angle. As a consequence, the sun-facing slopes block the sunlight and the other sides are cast

106 under shadow, especially over rough terrains. Also, the objective of using remote sensing tool in the present study is to show its power on land cover data acquisition and perform classification of vegetations based on their values as habitats. The imagery data was then combined with wildlife occurrence data which are recorded to the nearest 100m. IKONOS imagery with a very fine spatial resolution (4 x 4m for multi spectral, 1 x Im for pan) may exceed the requirement of the current study.

The current study depicted the situation at a certain point of time. However, the parameters concerning visitors and wildlife are subject to change over time. The situations at different periods of time can show the trend among visitors or shift of wild animals because of change in environmental conditions. In order to get the full spectrum, it is necessary to perform a time-series analysis.

6.3 Recommendations for Further Studies

To increase the representativeness of noise being a parameter to determine the level of annoyance, several ways can be integrated in future improvement. The psychological tests or interviews on people's perception on noise and recreation experience can help to draw a meaningful interpretation of the influence of noise to recreationists. On the other hand, the annoyance resulting from noise is different when concerning about different species. Substantial input is necessary to study the effect of noise on numerous wild animals upon different aspects such as reproduction success and foraging behavior (Liddle, 1997). Nevertheless, the focus can be put on those species with special merits like rarity so that mitigation measures can be performed at least upon these important animals with limited resources.

On the other hand, soil parameter should also be introduced in the trampling study. In previous studies of vegetation loss resulting from trampling in Hong Kong country parks (Jim, 1987b), soil compaction was examined through measuring bulk density and penetration resistance of soil. Soil compaction is the major factor causing impaired plant root system and retarded regeneration of vegetation. Such argument was reiterated by Jim & Lau (1997) who performed a controlled experiment to evaluate the impacts of trampling on a range of soil and vegetation attributes. On the

107 other hand, species composition was also studied (Jim, 1987b). The original sensitive woody dicots were changed to a few trampling-resistant monocots due to the result of trampling impact. As the degree of sensitivity of plants upon the disturbance is different, species that are more susceptible to the impact may decrease in their abundance or even disappear from the area, causing changes in species richness in the locations. As a result, other than studying the length and pattern of the trails, soil conditions and plants species can also be introduced in future investigation on trampling study.

The representativeness of the arbitrary scale with 10 steps scale in producing composite map of impact and conservation importance can be improved by adding different weightings on each parameters. It is because each of them weighs differently when the management objectives vary. For example, the presence of rare species in a unit areas should be graded a higher priority of protection. Facility provision and visitor entry should be prevented there. On the other hand, the effect of noise should be concerned more in the inner areas. It is because visitor may expect to gain relaxation from the quiet and harmony of the nature.

In proposing modification of relocation of problematic recreation sites, the shift of visitors and also the spread of corresponding impacts should be estimated in the sites nearby or targeted underused sites. If these sites are closed, visitors will move to sites nearby to perform leisure activities. The estimation can be carried out by considering facilities provided, site size, ease of access among the other sites left.

In the vegetation map produced by manipulating satellite imagery, the high proportion of shadow was found resulting from the acquisition time of the image by the satellite. The shaded areas do not have sufficiently high spectral reflectance value for classification was thus not able to be distinguished. To estimate the type of vegetation cover, ground truthing can be performed to acquire field data and help identify the classes in the shaded areas. On the other hand, the objective of using remote sensing tool in the present study is to acquire information necessary for classification of vegetations based on their values as habitats. Imageries with a relatively lower spatial resolution like ETM+ or SPOT can be considered (please refer to Table ii in Appendix 1). These are more compatible to other data sources in

108 terms of spatial resolution while information loss due to downgrading and efforts in image pre-processing and editing can be much reduced. However, the very fine spatial resolution of the IKONOS imagery allows more sophisticated studies, like trying to identify strands of single species from a mixture of vegetation.

In the biodiversity data set, positive records of fauna indicated the occurrences of a species, rather than absolute abundance of individuals. It was because except absolute non-occurrence, absence of record in an area might be due to seasonal movement or dormancy behavior of an animal. Thus, an area lacking of occurrence records does not mean ecologically insignificant. The area may be treated as home range for birds and larger mammals. Nevertheless, continuous accumulation of new data is still important because natural components are dynamic in nature and are subjected to change due to incompatible use or proposed development. Remote sensing tools for examining land cover and habitat mapping, and increased collection of biological data can help to achieve more complete knowledge base in the future.

A time-series analysis is suggested in future studies. It is because studying the conditions of visitor behavior and wildlife distribution are important in providing information for monitoring changes in pattern and then evaluation of recreation and conservation efforts is feasible. This is important to local country parks studies as the system has been established for decades and improvement works are necessary for those sites designated in the very beginning. Routine monitoring should be designed to gather information at different period of time.

In addition, the managers should consult the views of visitors. Surveys assessing the demand of visitors on countryside recreation can help park managers to assess and review their policies. Gradually increasing concern about the quality, rather than the quantity of resources, has great implications for countryside managers on the balance between conservation and recreation (Lee, 1993). Questionnaire survey on visitors' satisfaction and perception on impacts is recommended to perform before determining the choice of impact parameters and weighting assigned to each component in estimating composite impact. This allows the results of impact estimation being relied on the corresponding sensitive receivers. It is believed that the needs of visitors change with the socio-economic situation of the society and

109 trends in recreation, passive observation on visitors' behavior in the field or gaining opinions from active interviews should be carried out periodically to acquire visitors' feedbacks on the park authority's performance.

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尹键、費嘉倫、林超英（1994)香港及華南鳥類，香港特別行政區政府新聞處， 62 - 70 頁。

李香港郊野：！^隨 1)第三次增訂本、萬里機構•萬里書店’ 9-28，

31-32 頁 °

漁農署郊野公園及海岸公園管k局(2002)-林地生境

蘋果日報“半個世紀植樹荒燕瘠土變樣大橫公園成動植物天堂” 01/12/2002

117 Appendices

Appendix I. Descriptions and Basic Sensor Characteristics of IKONOS Satellite Image

IKONOS satellite was launched by Space Imaging, Inc., which is one of several commercial remote sensing companies providing imaging products for mapping purpose, agricultural application, natural resource management, etc. IKONOS satellite sensor has a 1 x 1 m panchromatic band and four multispectral visible and near-infrared bands at 4 x 4 m spatial resolution. The data are quantized to 11 bits. The table below shows spectral band characteristics of 4m MS IKONOS images.

Table i IKONOS Spectral Band Characteristics for 4m multispectml image. (Space Imaging, Inc., 2002) Spatial Band Lower 50% (nm) Upper 50% (nm) Bandwidth (nm) Center (mi) Resolution (m) at Nadir Pan 525.8 928.5 403 727.1 1 x1

义S-1 444.7 516.0 71.3 480.3 4x4 (Blue)

506.4 595.0 88.6 550.7 4x4 (Green) 631.9 697.7 65.8 664.8 4x4 (Red) 757.3 852.7 95.4 805.0 4x4 (VNIR)

Comparing to other traditional satellite image acquisition systems, IKONOS images contain a high spatial resolution that are sufficiently detailed for many urban planning and earth resource investigations (Table ii.). On the other hand, the satellite sensor is based on linear array CCD technology that allows imaging spectrometry. Imaging spectrometry is the simultaneous acquisition of images in many relatively narrow, contiguous and/or non-contiguous spectral bands throughout the ultraviolet, visible and infrared portions of the spectrum (Jensen, 2000). An imaging spectrometer adopted in IKONOS satellite provides a high-resolution reflectance spectrum in the region from 0.4 to 2.5|am for each feature recorded in the image. This region can be used to identify a large range of surface cover materials that

118 cannot be identified with broadband, low-spectral-resolution imaging systems like the Landsat MSS, TM, or SPOT. It is because these traditional broadband remote sensing systems make only a few measurement in spectral bands up to several hundred nanometers wide and thus under-sample the information content available form a reflectance spectrum.

Table ii Spatial Resolutions for commonly used Multispectral Remote Sensing Systems Multispectral Imaging Systems Resolution (IFOV at nadir) “ 79 X 79 m for bands 4 to 7 Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS) 240 X 240 m for band 8 30 X 30 m for bands 1 to 5, 7 Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) ^ , 120 x 120 m for band 6 — 30 X 30 m for bands 1 to 5, 7 Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus 60 X 60 m for band 6 (ETM+) 15 X 15 m for band 8 (Pan) NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution 1,100 X 1,100 m Radiometer (AVHRR) SPOT 1, 2 and 3 High Resolution Visible 20 x 20 m for bands 1 to 3 (HRV) sensors 10 x 10 m for Pan SPOT 4 High Resolution Visible Infrared 20 x 20 m for bands 1 to 3 and SWIR (HRVIR) 10 X 10 m for Pan 1,150 X 1,150 m for bands 0，2，3 and SPOT 4 Vegetation sensor oWlK “ 4 X 4 m for bands 1 to 4 Space Imaging, Inc., (IKONOS) i i r n ^ 1 X 1 m for Pan

NASA Terra Advanced Spacebome 15 x 15 m for VNIR Thermal Emission and Reflection 30 x 30 m for SWIR Radiometer (ASTER) 90 x 90 m for TIR

119 Appendix 2. Mathematic Conversion in Radiometric Correction

Table Hi. Parameters and Mathematics Conversion involved in Radiometric Correction. Blue Green R^NIR For eq. 1 Calibration for Conversion of Raw DN into At- Aperture, In-Band Radiance CalCoefk ^mm^

For eq. 2 Conversion of radiance units to at-satellite reflectance value Acquisition Date = 23/12/2000 Julian Date (JD) = 358 JD-4 = 354 0.9856(JD-4) = 348.902 Cos[0.9856(JD-4)]= 0.981301 0.01647cos[0.9856(JD-4)] = 0.016162 l-0.01647cos[0.9856(JD-4)] = 0.983838 D= 1.016428 1 / {1 -0.01674cos[0.9856(JD-4)]}= D'= 1.033125

7t * d^ = 3.245658

Sun Angle Elevation = 39.44912 degree Zenith = 50.55088 degree “~

90 - Sun Angle Elevation = Cos(Zenith) = 0.635393

ESUNj^= 1969.0001 1840.000 1551.000 1044.000

ESUN;,xcos(Zenith)= 1251.0881 1169.123 985.4942 663.35003

CalCoef for eq. 2: (71 * d')/( ESUNx X cos(Zenith)) = 0.0025941 0.002776 0.003293 0.00489283

120 Appendix 3. Details on Aerial Photo Interpretation

A set of vertical aerial photographs taken from an aircraft flying at an altitude of 5500 feet covering Shing Mun Country Parks were bought from the Survey and Mapping Office of Hong Kong Government for the purpose (Table vi.).

Table vi Attribute information of the aerial photos under investigation. Photo no.I Date Time Altitude / ft Coordinates “ 114:09:22E CN24332 03/11/1999 12:36:24 5473 22:23:40N “ 114:09:03E CN24333 03/11/1999 12:36:34 5473 22:23:20N “ 114:08:44E CN24334 03/11/1999 12:36:44 5473 22:23:01N “ 114:08:54E CN28063 14/09/2000 15:05:12 5590 22:22:38N “ 114:08:22E CN28104 14/09/2000 15:15:33 5590 22:23:22N

121 Appendix 4. Recreation Site Recording Sheet

Recreation Site Recording Sheet

C.+ P A Site Veg. Con. Litter Leq Facilities No. of ArtPerfomimP Date Site Site Ground ——^^— Provided Visitors Act Performing & Time Type Cover Within - . Within ... Site Around Vicmity ；^彳 te Vicinity Average Site

H—» K> K)

mtiiiiiiiimL___————————————— Appendix 5. Trespassing Recording Sheet

Tresnassins Recordim Sheet

Date:

Time:

Site:

General Pattern of the trespassing:

Facilities installed /provided nearby:

Special Features/Scenic Views present:

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