Determination of planning capacity and layout criteria of outdoor recreation projects

When meeting the increasing demand for outdoor recreation projects, problems arise concerning location, planning capacity and layout. A system has been developed to solve the two last mentioned problems. Special attention is paid to inland beaches in the Netherlands. To apply the system two types of models are needed: use models and weather models. In the evolved use models the visits per origin appeared to depend for inland beach recreation in the Netherlands on road distance between origin and site, inhabitants and incoming and outgoing vacationists per origin and capacity of alternative sites. Two types of weather models were constructed: statistical ones in which temperature, sunshine and wind velocity were used, and physical (heat exchange) models based in addition upon global radiation and relative humidity. The system to determine the planning capacity is based upon the curve of exceedance of visits per day for a normative year, choosing a normative day and application of the maximum momentary visit on this day. The level of this curve is calculated with use models, while the frequency of a certain number of visits per day is determined with weather models. For the normative day it is reasoned that the third most crowded day is to be used for inland beaches in the Netherlands. The maximum momentary visit on the normative day gives the planning capacity of the outdoor recreation project. A study of the behaviour of recreationists on existing projects gives insight in the border effect, the relationship between walking distances and crowdedness of elements and the distribution of visitors over the elements. Based upon these data formulae are evolved with which the area needed for the different elements, once knowing the planning capacity, can be determined. An application is given of the determination of planning capacity and areas of elements for a specific inland beach in the Netherlands.