Exploring the application of environmental impact assessment to tourism and recreation in protected areas: a systematic literature review

Over the years, concerns regarding the effects of tourism and recreational activities on protected areas have been consistently raised. The establishment of recreation ecology dates as far back as the 1920s and 1930s, marking efforts to address these concerns. Throughout the development of this field, a variety of tools and procedures were proposed for managing and monitoring the impacts of recreation, such as the recreation opportunity spectrum, limits of acceptable change, visitor activity management process, visitor impact management (VIM), visitor experience and resource protection, and the protected area VIM. In addition to these tools, environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a valuable approach for informing decision-making processes and predicting the environmental consequences of activities that may cause significant environmental degradation, thus aligning tourism and recreation with the goals of preserving protected areas. The purpose of this paper is to identify and critically discuss how environmental impact assessment is contributing to improving decision-making and management of public use in protected areas, with a focus on methodological approaches, the extent of its application and reported outcomes. To achieve this, we conducted a systematic literature review and established a preliminary connection between the methodologies for evaluating and monitoring the impacts of public use proposed in the reviewed articles and EIA. Our findings indicate that EIA can contribute in four main ways: firstly, by being applied prior to the implementation of the activity, secondly, by using methods to identify and predict impacts, thirdly, by applying monitoring procedures, and finally, by providing tiered steps to facilitate better decision-making.