What do You Hope to Hear in a National Park?

The Scenic Drive in Capitol Reef National Park. What sounds do you imagine hearing?

NPS/Ariel Solomon

What is a Soundscape?

A soundscape is composed of all the various natural and cultural sounds that help create a sense of place. Each national park has a unique soundscape. These sounds are central to a visitor’s experience in a park and are a part of the resources that the NPS protects for future generations.

Some visitors spend time in national parks enjoying the natural quiet and listening to the sounds of nature—falling water, singing birds, chirping insects, or the wind rustling in the trees. At Capitol Reef National Park (NP), natural sound is a significant resource and an important component of wilderness. Capitol Reef encompasses an area of about 381 square miles, with nearly all of it managed for its rugged and remote wilderness value.

Loss or change to natural soundscapes impacts natural and cultural resources in a park. Wildlife, for example, rely on acoustic signals for a variety of activities. At Capitol Reef, Mexican Spotted Owls call not only to attract a mate, but also to tell other owls that a territory is already occupied.

Falling water at a waterfall (left) in Capitol Reef. Photo credit: NPS/Emily Van Ness. Common ravens (right) make many different calls, at least one of which can be heard for more than a mile. Photo credit: NPS/Jacob W. Frank.

What can affect the soundscape in Capitol Reef?

The following sources of sound, originating from both outside and inside the park, can detract from the park soundscape.

Sources of noise from outside the park include:

• Aircraft (commercial jets, military overflights, private aircraft) (may be one of the primary noise sources in the backcountry)
• Recreational use adjacent to the park (off-highway vehicles, camping)
• Noise from nearby communities (for example, traffic)

Sources of noise inside the park include:

• Park infrastructure use and development, maintenance activities
• Visitor use (automobiles and other vehicles on roads, parking areas, camping)
• Air tours (although only one air tour occurred in 2019, seven vendors are authorized to give up to 284 air tours annually)

Assessing condition of the soundscape at Capitol Reef

A recent Natural Resource Condition Assessment (NRCA) through the NPS NRCA Program focused on a number of resources in Capitol Reef, including the soundscape. NRCAs evaluate natural resource conditions so that parks can use the best available science to manage their resources. While some information on Capitol Reef’s soundscape was available at the time of the assessment, other data that had been collected were still being analyzed. We’ll tell you about both sets of information here.

What did we learn from the assessment?

For the assessment we used a geospatial model developed by the NPS Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division (NSNSD) that predicts the impact from noise levels. It does well at predicting acoustic conditions over large landscapes but may not reflect recent localized changes, such as new roads.

At Capitol Reef, the model indicates a fair condition of the park-wide sound level. However, different areas of the park experience different sound level impacts, depending on their proximity to noise sources and other factors, such as location and land cover. Small areas, such as the road corridor (only 0.2% of the park), can have an outsized effect on the soundscape quality. The model indicates fair conditions in the primitive and semi-primitive management zones of Capitol Reef—a vast majority of the park’s area (93%)—and poor conditions for the remaining park zones, including the road corridor.

Because the sound impact model applies to an average summer day, we looked at traffic count data at nine sites for May through August from 1992 to 2020. The total number of vehicles in the park in these months was fairly stable from 1992 to 2009 (around 200,000 each year) but increased substantially after that. Most of the increase occurred at Highway 24 (the primary road through the park) and popular attractions accessed from this road (such as the Visitor Center and Petroglyph Panel).

Traffic and traffic management in the congested Visitor's Center area.

NPS photo

What information is coming soon?

Park staff collected acoustic data (continuous digital audio recordings) and associated photos at three locations in the northern half of Capitol Reef NP for one year beginning in August 2020. Placement of the three monitoring sites was influenced by our need to understand more about traffic counts and the noise levels produced by different types of vehicles. Field recordings can be compared to relative sound levels across sites and used to identify noise sources (such as, aircraft, automobiles) and natural sounds (such as, wind, water). At Capitol Reef, data collection is complete, and data are now being analyzed.

What can park managers do with this information?

The information in this analysis can be used to inform park planning and management actions that involve the soundscape of Capitol Reef NP.

• Integrate the soundscape analysis (geospatial model) results with the acoustic data collected to further model Capitol Reef’s soundscape.

• Continue monitoring backcountry visitation and develop mitigation strategies to minimize potential impacts to wilderness soundscapes and solitude if visitation continues to rise.

• This assessment and results of the acoustic monitoring will provide information on the park’s soundscape that does not include noise from off-highway vehicle (OHV) use within the park. These vehicles, used primarily for recreation, are not currently allowed in the park, but they are used in areas adjacent to the park.

• Some actions could be considered to reduce noise from vehicles on roads, including lowering speed limits, restricting the use of engine brakes, establishing rules against idling vehicles, and repaving road surfaces with quieter materials.

A few final (but important) words

Want to “hear more” about natural sounds and actions you can take to enjoy and protect your soundscape? See these links for enhancing your soundscape and what you can do to make a positive difference.

Click on these links to NPS NSNSD webpages to learn more about the effects of noise on wildlife, wilderness, park visits, and the cultural-historic experience.

And don’t miss the opportunity to listen to some awesome sounds of our national parks!

Information in this article was summarized from: Struthers K and Others. 2022. Natural resource conditions at Capitol Reef National Park: Findings & management considerations for selected resources. Natural Resource Report. NPS/NCPN/NRR—2022/2406. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado. https://doi.org/10.36967/nrr-2293700