U.S. wilderness in the 21st century: A scoping review of wilderness visitor use management research from 2000 to 2020

Abstract

Now over twenty years into the 21st century, it is suggested that we are entering a new era of wilderness visitor use management (VUM). Yet, we lack a recent review of the literature assessing the latest research trends to advance wilderness VUM in a meaningful way. Accordingly, this research serves as both a review of the last twenty years of U.S. wilderness VUM research and a launching point into the next era. Our assessment adds to several previous benchmarks that demonstrate the progress of wilderness VUM research. This review evaluates trends in methodologies and themes of inquiry specific to VUM research in federally-designated wilderness over the past twenty years. The findings inform our discussion on emergent wilderness values and relevancy, approaches and settings of research, the evolving aspects of VUM in the wilderness, and the need for the synthesis of research across the National Wilderness Preservation System.

Keywords:

• Wilderness
• visitor use management
• review

Author contributions

All authors contributed equally to the production of the manuscript.

Authors’ note

The term “wilderness” used throughout this manuscript and the topics discussed refers to congressionally-designated, federally-administered wilderness areas.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics Statement

This paper did not require ethics approval as it was a scoping review.

Additional information

Funding

We acknowledge funding support for this research from the National Park Service Park Planning and Special Studies, and technical assistance from the Wilderness Stewardship Division and Denver Service Center (Interagency Agreement 17-IA-11221639-144), and the Research Joint Venture (20-JV-11221639-162) between the University of Montana and the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Rocky Mountain Research Station, USDA Forest Service. The findings and conclusions in this publication are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent any official U.S. Department of Agriculture or U.S. Government determination or policy.