Assessing a River Tracing Behavioural Model: a Taiwan Example

INTRODUCTION Taiwan, located along the fault line separating the Euro-Asian and Philippine continental plates, is aff ected by frequent plate collisions resulting in an extremely mountainous topography. These mountainous areas receive suffi cient rainfall to sustain the fl ow of water in stream, waterfalls, canyons, cliff s, creeks and rivers (Hsu 1987). River tracing, a sport in adventure tourism, is defi ned as the practice of following rivers up the sides of mountains, wading through small rapids and climbing over rocks and other obstacles in order to venture into pristine environments. River tracing has recently become a popular activity in adventure tourism and is fast becoming popular in Taiwan as well (Lin 2002).