Motivations to Visit and Perceived Barriers to Accessing the Cultural Ecosystem Services Offered by Urban Lakes

Citation

Fricke, R. M., Gawel, J. E., Shinneman, A., Martin, L., Bogstie, S., & Olden, J. D. (2026). Motivations to visit and perceived barriers to accessing the cultural ecosystem services offered by urban lakes. Lake and Reservoir Management, 1–15. doi.org/10.1080/10402381.2026.2710052

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Urban blue-green spaces (lakes with nearby parks) offer real benefits to people, from places to relax and play to opportunities for connecting with nature. Yet these everyday cultural ecosystem services are often overlooked when communities decide how to care for and invest in public lands (public resource planning).

To better understand what these spaces mean to the people who use them, researchers asked visitors and potential visitors at public lakeside parks in western Washington to share how likely they would be to use various activities and amenities, and what challenges or barriers might keep them from visiting more often. The team gathered input through two surveys: one conducted in person at 18 local lakeside parks during the summer of 2021 (667 survey responses), and another distributed online in summer 2022 (756 survey responses), designed to reflect the diversity of the surrounding community.

When the researchers looked closely at people’s responses, three main themes emerged around how people use these spaces:

The kinds of activities they participate in
Whether those activities happen on the lake or in the park
Whether the activities tend to be more social or more solitary

These themes help paint a fuller picture of the many ways blue-green spaces enrich daily life.

The findings also highlighted an important equity concern: certain barriers — especially limited public transportation and concerns about water safety — tend to affect underrepresented groups more heavily. Addressing these barriers could help ensure that everyone can safely enjoy these spaces.

These insights offer practical guidance for county water resource managers, supporting more thoughtful communication and better access for all community members at local lakes and parks.

Abstract

Urban blue-green spaces (lakes with adjacent park space) provide numerous cultural ecosystem services to human populations, yet these contributions are infrequently measured and can be underappreciated in public resource planning. Here, we asked active and potential visitors to public urban blue-green spaces in western Washington, USA, to rate how likely they are to use activities and amenities at blue-green spaces and to identify problems or barriers that may prevent them from using blue-green spaces more. We collected data across 2 surveys, one disseminated primarily in person at 18 local lakeside parks in summer 2021 (n = 667), and the other via a summer 2022 Qualtrics email campaign that intended to capture a population sample reflecting local demographics (n = 756). Our factor analysis of blue-green space users’ ratings of their likelihood to participate in different blue-green space activities identified 3 latent factors: the activities respondents participate in, the ecosystem where these activities occur (lake versus park), and whether these activities are more social or solitary. These explained 24%, 12%, and 8% of variance in responses, respectively. In addition, survey responses suggest that barriers such as limited public transportation availability and water safety disproportionately affect underrepresented sociodemographic groups. Cumulatively, these findings will support lake-specific improvements in communication and accessibility by county water resource management partners.