National Park Service

Mapping Wilderness Character in Death Valley National Park National Park Service

The recent development of an interagency strategy to monitor wilderness character allows on the ground ground managers and decision makers to assess whether stewardship actions for an individual wilderness are fulfilling the mandate to preserve wilderness character. By using credible data that are consistently collected, one can assess how wilderness character changes over time and evaluate how stewardship actions affect trends in wilderness character. As most of these data depict spatial features in wilderness, this study investigates whether a wilderness character map can be developed to provide a spatially explicit understanding of these changes and trends over time.