Recreation Opportunity Spectrum

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.