Mending man's ways: Wickedness, complexity and off-road travel

Authored by Brian Muller

Date Published: 2016

DOI: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2016.03.020

Sponsors: No sponsors listed

Platforms: Java

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Flow charts

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

While the concept of wickedness has been applied frequently in planning and design environments, its application to complex regulatory problems is less well-developed. Off-road and social travel has become a significant source of environmental degradation across many regions worldwide, and the widespread failures of travel regulation suggest that it has characteristics of a wicked problem as described by Rittel and Webber. This paper presents a simulation of a complex regulatory system - the interaction of cumulative travel decisions, alternative regulatory regimes, and landscape values - using a case study of a landscape adjoining Las Cruces, New Mexico. This research is built on a morphological analysis of change in travel patterns derived from historical remote sensing imagery. The findings of this paper suggest that the cumulative nature of travel demand among off-road users has important implications for the resilience of natural systems particularly in places of high demand such as metropolitan edges. Regulatory choices can create both virtuous and vicious cycles in travel behavior,which suggests opportunities for constructing adaptive strategy in off-road travel management. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Tags

Choice Physical-environment