A Review of the Forest Service's National Visitor Use Monitoring (NVUM) Program

English, Donald B.K.; White, Eric M.; Bowker, J.M.; Winter, Susan A.

doi:10.1017/age.2019.27

Cited by 12 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…In addition, these two approaches could be paired to strategically inform one another. For instance, social media data might be used to help stratify individual sites according to relative use (e.g., high, medium, low) for traditional recreation monitoring programs that employ stratified on-site sampling schemes 37 , 38 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Next-generation visitation models using social media to estimate recreation on public lands

Wood

Winder

Lia

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Outdoor and nature-based recreation provides countless social benefits, yet public land managers often lack information on the spatial and temporal extent of recreation activities. Social media is a promising source of data to fill information gaps because the amount of recreational use is positively correlated with social media activity. However, despite the implication that these correlations could be employed to accurately estimate visitation, there are no known transferable models parameterized for use with multiple social media data sources. This study tackles these issues by examining the relative value of multiple sources of social media in models that estimate visitation at unmonitored sites and times across multiple destinations. Using a novel dataset of over 30,000 social media posts and 286,000 observed visits from two regions in the United States, we compare multiple competing statistical models for estimating visitation. We find social media data substantially improve visitor estimates at unmonitored sites, even when a model is parameterized with data from another region. Visitation estimates are further improved when models are parameterized with on-site counts. These findings indicate that while social media do not fully substitute for on-site data, they are a powerful component of recreation research and visitor management.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Next-generation visitation models using social media to estimate recreation on public lands

Wood

Winder

Lia

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

Self Cite

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“…The NVUM uses a standardized sampling protocol to survey selected visitors to each unit of the National Forest System. National forests are included in NVUM on a rotating 5-year schedule, and the NVUM survey includes questions about visitor characteristics and activities (English et al 2020). The survey responses can be used to estimate the number of people participating in a given activity, including overnight camping within or beyond developed campgrounds, which we refer to as designated campgrounds.…”

Section: Data Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human and climatic influences on wildfires ignited by recreational activities in national forests in Washington, Oregon, and California^*

Jenkins,

Abatzoglou,

Rupp

et al. 2023

Environ. Res. Commun.

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In Washington, Oregon, and California, ignitions from recreational activities accounted for 12% of human-caused wildfires, and 8% of the area burned, from 1992–2020. Wildfires ignited by recreational activities not only increase fire suppression expenditures but have the potential to limit recreational activities traditionally associated with use of fire, such as camping. From 1992–2020, 50% of recreation-caused ignitions in these three states occurred on lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service. The mean annual number of recreation-caused ignitions on national forests in the three states during this period was relatively stable, about 500, whereas recreation-caused ignitions within other jurisdictions decreased by 40%. Improved understanding of the impact of human and climatic factors on recreation-caused ignitions could provide valuable insights for shaping policy and management decisions. We found that mean annual densities of recreation-caused ignitions on national forests were 7 times greater within 1 km of designated campgrounds than >1 km from campgrounds, although 80% of recreation-caused ignitions occured >1 km from designated campgrounds. Ignition density in campgrounds increased non-linearly with overnight visitor density; a doubling of visitor density was associated with a ∼40% increase in ignitions. Large (≥4 ha) recreation-caused wildfires, especially those ignited in designated campgrounds, tended to occur concurrent with drought and 1–2 years after anomalously wet conditions. These results suggest that accounting for drought in implementation of fire restrictions, and targeting wildfire-prevention awareness to recreational users outside designated campgrounds, might reduce the likelihood of recreation-caused ignitions.

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“…As such, quantifying and understanding the use of these resources informs efforts to protect and improve environmental quality and recreational opportunities. Accurate estimates of visitation across large geographic scales, management entities (e.g., national parks, national forests, state and local parks), and time are critical to park managers and surrounding communities to inform park planning efforts, including protecting resources and improving visitor safety [7], understanding environmental and economic benefits [8][9][10], and projecting how visitation may change over time based on changing environmental conditions such as climate effects [11]. However, quantifying the level of use and profile of the visitors of a resource is surprisingly and persistently hard to obtain.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using cellular device location data to estimate visitation to public lands: Comparing device location data to U.S. National Park Service’s visitor use statistics

Tsai,

Merrill,

Neale

et al. 2023

PLoS ONE

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Understanding human use of public lands is essential for management of natural and cultural resources. However, compiling consistently reliable visitation data across large spatial and temporal scales and across different land managing entities is challenging. Cellular device locations have been demonstrated as a source to map human activity patterns and may offer a viable solution to overcome some of the challenges that traditional on-the-ground visitation counts face on public lands. Yet, large-scale applicability of human mobility data derived from cell phone device locations for estimating visitation counts to public lands remains unclear. This study aims to address this knowledge gap by examining the efficacy and limitations of using commercially available cellular data to estimate visitation to public lands. We used the United States’ National Park Service’s (NPS) 2018 and 2019 monthly visitor use counts as a ground-truth and developed visitation models using cellular device location-derived monthly visitor counts as a predictor variable. Other covariates, including park unit type, porousness, and park setting (i.e., urban vs. non-urban, iconic vs. local), were included in the model to examine the impact of park attributes on the relationship between NPS and cell phone-derived counts. We applied Pearson’s correlation and generalized linear mixed model with adjustment of month and accounting for potential clustering by the individual park units to evaluate the reliability of using cell data to estimate visitation counts. Of the 38 parks in our study, 20 parks had a correlation of greater than 0.8 between monthly NPS and cell data counts and 8 parks had a correlation of less than 0.5. Regression modeling showed that the cell data could explain a great amount of the variability (conditional R-squared = 0.96) of NPS counts. However, these relationships varied across parks, with better associations generally observed for iconic parks. While our study increased our confidence in using cell phone data to estimate visitation, we also became aware of some of the limitations and challenges which we present in the Discussion.

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A Review of the Forest Service's National Visitor Use Monitoring (NVUM) Program

Cited by 12 publications

References 16 publications

Next-generation visitation models using social media to estimate recreation on public lands

Next-generation visitation models using social media to estimate recreation on public lands

Human and climatic influences on wildfires ignited by recreational activities in national forests in Washington, Oregon, and California^*

Using cellular device location data to estimate visitation to public lands: Comparing device location data to U.S. National Park Service’s visitor use statistics

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A Review of the Forest Service's National Visitor Use Monitoring (NVUM) Program

Cited by 12 publications

References 16 publications

Next-generation visitation models using social media to estimate recreation on public lands

Next-generation visitation models using social media to estimate recreation on public lands

Human and climatic influences on wildfires ignited by recreational activities in national forests in Washington, Oregon, and California *

Using cellular device location data to estimate visitation to public lands: Comparing device location data to U.S. National Park Service’s visitor use statistics

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Human and climatic influences on wildfires ignited by recreational activities in national forests in Washington, Oregon, and California^*