The behavior of visitors in a museum is one way to evaluate the effective exhibits and information services. Unobtrusive observation of visitors both in and around a visitor center and museum produces data which indicate visitor preferences. Timing visitors to see how long they stay at a particular spot contributes to the planner's knowledge of museum patrons. Studies of this sort are quite common in private zoos, museums, and aquariums nationwide. The National Park Service, however, has done few unobtrusive observation studies, and little to evaluate exhibit effectiveness. In this study, visitors to the Saguaro National Park, East Unit, Visitor Center in Tucson, Arizona, were unobtrusively observed to determine their interests. A population of 100 visitors was observed outside the visitor center, and a population of 100 visitors was observed inside. Visitor responses to 23 stopping points inside the visitor center were observed.

Emory oak (Quercus emoryi) and Arizona white oak (Q. arizonica), currently being harvested for fuelwood in encinals of southern Arizona, usually regenerate through stump sprouting. Adjacent to a Huachuca Mountains fuelwood cutting area, 3 replications of four thinning treatments (25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% intensity) were established in January, 1986. Regeneration was assessed one year later by examining the effects of thinning intensity, partial or complete stem cluster cutting, and tree characteristics. Clearcutting greatly increased the proportion of stumps that sprout for Emory oak and increased sprout volume production for both species in comparison to thinned plots. Partially cut multi-stemmed tree clusters were less likely to sprout and have less sprout volume growth after one year than completely cut clusters. Regression models were developed to estimate sprout volume production based on thinning intensity, percent stem basal area cut, tree vigor, number of tree stems, and heart rot.

Research has shown that women perceive, use, and experience space differently than men, in part, because of gender issues and fear of victimization for violent crimes. Recent research has focused on the built environment, violence against women, and the social context of a university. The research study described here investigated women's perception of and actual safety from assault and rape on The University of Arizona campus. Sites perceived as safe and unsafe were identified from responses of 100 women students and administrators. Police reports of 132 campus assaults of women were used to identify sites of past rapes and assaults. Two outdoor sites were assessed in a preliminary study of two environmental audit methods. Findings from this study indicated that respondents perceived the campus as being very safe during the day but unsafe at night. Sites of previous assaults on women overlapped little with the areas women associated with fear.

Who uses the forage resources under a communal land tenure system? Using data from a Mexican Indian community with a history of communal land tenure extending prior to the Conquest, the research explores and attempts to answer this question. The analysis is based on 1970 socio-economic data for 533 households, secondary sources, and 1987 field observations in a community of Zapotec farmers in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico. The factors influencing who uses the communal resources include livestock ownership, wealth ranking, migration history, and participation in the local labor market. Although all members of the community have the right to graze animals on the commons, only a fraction of the wealthier households exercise this right. Consequently grazing pressure is minimized (reduced) compared to the potential grazing pressure that otherwise would be exerted if all the members of the community were to exercise their rights to use the forage resources at the same time.

Ground cover, species composition, average distance between perennial plants, standing biomass, frequency of bare quadrats, and site stability rating were evaluated as predictor variables in determining the degree of site protection from accelerated soil erosion on a clay loam upland range site. Interpretations of range condition, species diversity, and the WEPP model predicted sediment yield were analyzed to determine their usefulness in detecting a threshold of site protection. Standing biomass, basal cover, average distance between plants and frequency of bare quadrats demonstrated strong correlations to the site stability rating and were useful in examining thresholds of site protection. The WEPP model was useful in determining a threshold of protection with the site stability rating. The diversity index and range condition rating showed poor relationships with the stability indices and plant community attributes measured. Thus, individually, these ratings do not provide and adequate assessment of the degree of site protection.

An automated system for distributed hydrologic modeling was developed for use with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT: Arnold et al., 1996) and the Kinematic Runoff and Erosion Model (KINEROS; Smith et al., 1995). This suite of programs, the Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment (AGWA) tool, was used to investigate the impacts of land cover change in watersheds within the Catskill/Delaware watershed complex in upstate New York and Upper San Pedro River basin in southeastern Arizona. As shown by classified remotely sensed imagery, these watersheds have undergone opposing land cover transitions over the past 25 years. SWAT simulations illustrated minor improvements in hydrologic response within the Catskill/Delaware watershed but a moderate increase in the San Pedro. A small watershed within the San Pedro was modeled using KINEROS to demonstrate localized impacts of land cover transitions. Fifty watersheds ranging in size from 5 to 100 km - were prepared for input to the KINEROS model using a range of geometric complexities and rainfall events. A nonlinear response to watershed complexity as a function of watershed scale and rainfall magnitude was observed. Small watersheds were more sensitive to landscape variability when small rainfall inputs were used, but the impact of spatial representation became insignificant when large rainfall inputs were used. Conversely, large watersheds were sensitive to spatial complexity for all rainfall data, although the relative effects were mitigated by increased rainfall. Remotely sensed imagery served as the primary mechanism for determining land cover within the study areas. A technique was created in which the errors from a misclassification error matrix were systematically introduced to a classified image to produce 100 realizations of land cover within the San Pedro basin. These realizations were used by AGWA to prepare input to KINEROS at a range of basin scales and rainfall inputs. The propagation of error and resultant uncertainty in simulation results was found to vary with watershed scale and rainfall input. Larger watersheds are more sensitive to misclassification error, while uncertainty in model output is inversely related to rainfall magnitude.