Recreation studied from above : airphoto interpretation as input into land evaluation for recreation

Recreation and tourism are of growing importance not only in the industrialized part of the world, but also In developing countries. Remote sensing and in particular airphoto interpretation can be used in several ways as input into land evaluation for recreation and tourism. An inventory of recreational facilities that can give a first indication of the spatial pattern of recreation, can be partly done by airphoto interpretation. For the analysis of the relation between recreational facilities and their resources, remote sensing can give the best overview of the landscape. The use of sequences of airphotos can reveal development processes. An extreme stage of recreational impact, recreational erosion, can be identified on airphotos. The gradual process underlying it can best be assessed from sequences of airphotos of different years. Airphotos are a useful tool too for the analysis of the spatial behaviour of recreationists, and sequences taken during one season or one day can provide the time dimension to that behaviour.Airphotos are also ideal for analysis of the visual structure of the landscape, a first step to landscape evaluation.Satellite images are not yet suitable for most applications, but in a number of studies reasonable results have been obtained with SPOT images, for example for change analysis and for the analysis of the visual structure of the landscape.Application of remote sensing is especially appropriate in situations where conventional sources of data are scarce, completely lacking, obsolete or incomplete.