Compare methods

	Limits of Acceptable Change	Recreation Opportunity Spectrum
Field	Tourism Recreation	Tourism Recreation
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1985	1979
Originator	George H. Stankey, David N. Cole, Robert C. Lucas, Margaret E. Petersen & Sidney S. Frissell	Roger N. Clark & George H. Stankey
Type	Condition-based recreation and wilderness planning pipeline	Setting-classification framework for recreation planning
Seminal source	Stankey, G. H., Cole, D. N., Lucas, R. C., Petersen, M. E., & Frissell, S. S. (1985). The Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) System for Wilderness Planning. Gen. Tech. Rep. INT-GTR-176. Ogden, UT: USDA Forest Service, Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station.	Clark, R. N., & Stankey, G. H. (1979). The Recreation Opportunity Spectrum: A Framework for Planning, Management, and Research. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-098. Portland, OR: USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station.
Aliases	LAC Planning Framework, Acceptable Change Planning, LAC Wilderness Planning System	ROS Framework, Recreation Setting Spectrum, Opportunity Setting Classification
Related	3	3
Summary	The Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) framework is a planning system for managing recreation and wilderness areas that shifts the central question from 'how much use is too much?' to 'how much change in conditions is acceptable, and where?' Developed by George Stankey and colleagues for the USDA Forest Service in 1985, LAC accepts that any human use produces some change and that managers must therefore define, in advance, the conditions they are willing to tolerate. The framework proceeds through a structured sequence: partition the area into opportunity classes, choose measurable indicators of resource and social conditions, set explicit standards for each indicator by class, monitor those indicators over time, and trigger management actions whenever a standard is exceeded. By anchoring decisions to desired conditions rather than to a single carrying-capacity number, LAC turns visitor management into a transparent, defensible, and monitorable process.	The Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) is a framework for planning and managing outdoor recreation by classifying the landscape into a graded range of settings, from primitive to modern and urbanized. Articulated by Roger Clark and George Stankey for the USDA Forest Service in 1979, ROS rests on the premise that the quality of a recreation experience depends heavily on the setting in which it occurs, and that a recreation system should deliberately provide a diversity of settings so that different visitors can find the experiences they seek. The framework defines settings along physical, social, and managerial factors, such as remoteness, the density of other visitors, and the degree of on-site regulation and development. By inventorying these factors and combining them, managers classify each part of a landscape into an opportunity class and then prescribe management consistent with maintaining that class.