Recreational use in dispersed public lands measured using social media data and on-site counts. (15th September 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fisher, David M.; Wood, Spencer A.; White, Eric M.; Blahna, Dale J.; Lange, Sarah; Weinberg, Alex; Tomco, Michael; Lia, Emilia
• Is Part Of: Journal of environmental management. Volume 222(2018)
• Page Start: 465
• Page End: 474
• Publication Date: 2018-09-15
• Subjects: Recreation -- Visitation rates -- Public lands -- Social media -- Conservation areas -- National forests -- Geotagged photographs; Environmental policy -- Periodicals; Environmental management -- Periodicals; Environment -- Periodicals; Ecology -- Periodicals; 363.705
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.05.045
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0301-4797

Abstract

Abstract: Outdoor recreation is one of many important benefits provided by public lands. Data on recreational use are critical for informing management of recreation resources, however, managers often lack actionable information on visitor use for large protected areas that lack controlled access points. The purpose of this study is to explore the potential for social media data (e.g., geotagged images shared on Flickr and trip reports shared on a hiking forum) to provide land managers with useful measures of recreational use to dispersed areas, and to provide lessons learned from comparing several more traditional counting methods. First, we measure daily and monthly visitation rates to individual trails within the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest (MBSNF) in western Washington. At 15 trailheads, we compare counts of hikers from infrared sensors, timelapse cameras, and manual on-site counts, to counts based on the number of shared geotagged images and trip reports from those locations. Second, we measure visitation rates to each National Forest System (NFS) unit across the US and compare annual measurements derived from the number of geotagged images to estimates from the US Forest Service National Visitor Use Monitoring Program. At both the NFS unit and the individual-trail scales, we found strong correlations between traditional measures of recreational use and measures based on user-generated content shared on the internet. For national forests in every region of the country, correlations between official Forest Service statistics and geotagged images ranged between 55% and 95%. For individual trails within the MBSNF, monthly visitor counts from on-site measurements were strongly correlated with counts from geotagged images (79%) and trip reports (91%). The convenient, cost-efficient and timely nature of collecting and analyzing user-generated data could allow land managers to monitor use over different seasons of the year and at sites and scales never previously monitored, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of recreational use patterns and values. Highlights: Social media data create new opportunities to measure and model recreational use on public lands. Across scales, there are strong correlations between traditional measures of use and measures based on social media content. Nationally, forest visitation is correlated with counts from geotagged images, with some geographic variation. Monthly visitor counts at trails are correlated with counts from geotagged images (79%) and online trip reports (91%). New data sources can inform models that predict visitor numbers across an unprecedented number of sites.