Norms, standards, and natural resources

The normative approach in natural resource management illustrates the progress that has been made in advancing theory and application in outdoor recreation research. This article integrates findings from a number of different studies to highlight the utility of the normative approach and provide an example of how efforts focused on a particular theoretical approach can enhance the quality of scientific research. Findings from both social and ecological impact studies are examined. Topics include norms for encounters, ecological impacts, aesthetic impacts, and instream flows. A number of considerations for future research are presented, including the definition of norms, norm salience, norm consensus, question construction, and statistics for measuring norms.