Analysing hiker movement patterns using GPS data: Implications for park management

Abstract

Analysing hiker movement patterns using GPS data: Implications for park management Meijles, E.; de Bakker, M.; Groote, P.; Barske, R. Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons the number of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum. AbstractIn natural areas, park management organisations need to cater for economic, environmental, recreation and social demands and values. However, multifunctional land use also creates conflicts. Increased numbers of people using an area could exceed its ecological carrying capacity. The recreational quality of areas could be negatively impacted by conflicts in recreational behaviour. Therefore, park managers require spatio-temporal data on visitor flows, but there appears to be a shortage of suitable visitor data. If there are data available, these often do not deliver the information required by managers and there is little guidance on appropriate monitoring variables. This paper therefore combines user movement analysis with environmental and ecological factors for natural resource management. Through a case study we describe the entire working process from field data acquisition to usable park management information. GPS and itinerary data from 138 visitors to the Drents-Friese Wold National Park (the Netherlands) were collected to estimate visitor densities and distribution patterns within the park. Data acquisition is efficient in the working process, but careful error handling is a time consuming but necessary part of it. We introduce the definition of 'hard' and 'soft' errors to make spatial analysis more flexible. We show that walking speed, trip time and spatial distributions varied between park visitor groups. Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analysis showed that factors such as the presence of marked trails, distance to facilities but not land use (such as forest or arable land) explained visitor distributions. Patterns differ between respondent groups based on group size and composition, which is also true for itinerary variables such as walking speed and trip time. The combination of high resolution location data with itinerary information from respondents provides a good impression of the different walking preferences of different respondent groups. We conclude therefore that combining GPS data with itinerary information is a useful tool in profiling different natural park visitors. This is useful information for park managers in steering tourists and in catering for different visitor demands in natural parks.

Analysing human mobility patterns of hiking activities through complex network theory

“…To obtain trajectories from visitors, in several cases, authors provide them preconfigured GPS devices to facilitate the applicability of statical techniques within small confined areas [3,4,24]. In the analysis of the movement, several techniques are used such as point density [5,25,26], counting the frequency of visits on a determined area [6,27], identifying suspension patterns (areas with a reduction in the speed), and flow distribution among areas [3]. In these studies, the goal is to obtain a rank of areas or trail segments according to some characteristic (e.g.…”

Science Mapping of Tourist Mobility 1980–2019. Technological Advancements in the Collection of the Data for Tourist Traceability

“…From the transport point of view, the study of tourist movement is critical because of its possible influence on the planning of the same, to avoid congestion; and also to manage the destination's load capacity, as presented in Lew and Albrecht [41][42][43][44][45][46]. From the administration and management of a destination point of view, studies have focused mainly on the analysis of the behavior of tourists, based on information on the movement of flows [47,48]. Other works focus on information and help tourists in specific places such as natural parks, depending on the cases [49][50][51][52][53][54] or for decision-making regarding infrastructure congestion and overburden in natural areas [55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62].…”

PPGIS and Public Use in Protected Areas: A Case Study in the Ebro Delta Natural Park, Spain

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