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Browsing by Author "Mohl, Isabelle"

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    Water and Lands Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (WALROS)
    Carroll, Joshua; Mohl, Isabelle; Taylor, Alexis (New River Symposium, 2024-04-12)
    Water recreation along the New River and Claytor Lake continue to gain popularity, and Water Access remains one of the top priorities for the Virginia Outdoors Plan, backed by significant demand and use. One tool that has been used to help managers, planners, and communities better understand the resource they are charged with protecting is the Water and Lands Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (WALROS). WALROS is an inventory, planning, and mapping tool used to categorize natural resources and recreation settings, to help focus management action and limited resources. WALROS works on the premise that a recreation activity takes place in a particular setting, and this yields an experience and associated benefits. The goal of WALROS is to inventory and classify the physical, social, and managerial setting attributes in order to better understand the resource and to concentrate natural resource management, planning, and outreach efforts. During the past several years, WALROS data have been collected on various sections of Claytor Lake and the New River. This presentation will provide an overview of WALROS, how it can be used as a planning and management tool, results of data collected thus far, and aims to spark discussions for possible future uses on Claytor Lake and/or the New River. This will include discussion-based slides as well as color-coded digital maps that depict different setting attributes and classifications that highlight how these can change across seasons, use levels, and setting attributes themselves.