Spatial and Temporal Dynamics and Value of Nature-Based Recreation, Estimated via Social Media

Protected natural areas do more than preserve wildlife and clean water. They also give people a place to hike, paddle, ski, and explore. Managing these lands for recreation isn’t simple. Land managers need to know which features draw visitors and how changes to the land affect those visits over time.

Until now, studies that look at both where people go and how their use changes over time have been rare, mostly because the data is hard to come by.

In this study, researchers looked at nature-based recreation on conserved lands across Vermont using geotagged photos uploaded to Flickr. By combining visit counts with average trip spending, they calculated that conserved lands contributed $1.8 billion to Vermont’s tourism industry between 2007 and 2014 (with a 95% confidence range of $0.18 billion to $20.2 billion).

The team identified eight landscape features that explained where people visited most. Visits were higher on conserved lands that were larger, had less forest cover, more trails, and better opportunities for snow sports. Some of these patterns differed from what studies in other regions have found, but all of them matched what locals know about recreation in Vermont.

Importantly, the research showed that relying on static, one-time snapshots of visitor data could lead to bad decisions. For example, a static model might suggest that clearing forests would boost visits—since less-forested lands tend to attract more people. But a dynamic model that tracks changes over time tells a different story: clearing forests actually decreases visits.

The takeaway? To make smart choices about conserving land for recreation, decision-makers need to understand not just where people go, but how they use the land over time.

Abstract

Conserved lands provide multiple ecosystem services, including opportunities for nature-based recreation. Managing this service requires understanding the landscape attributes underpinning its provision, and how changes in land management affect its contribution to human wellbeing over time. However, evidence from both spatially explicit and temporally dynamic analyses is scarce, often due to data limitations. In this study, we investigated nature-based recreation within conserved lands in Vermont, USA. We used geotagged photographs uploaded to the photo-sharing website Flickr to quantify visits by in-state and out-of-state visitors, and we multiplied visits by mean trip expenditures to show that conserved lands contributed US $1.8 billion (US $0.18–20.2 at 95% confidence) to Vermont’s tourism industry between 2007 and 2014. We found eight landscape attributes explained the pattern of visits to conserved lands; visits were higher in larger conserved lands, with less forest cover, greater trail density and more opportunities for snow sports. Some of these attributes differed from those found in other locations, but all aligned with our understanding of recreation in Vermont. We also found that using temporally static models to inform conservation decisions may have perverse outcomes for nature-based recreation. For example, static models suggest conserved land with less forest cover receive more visits, but temporally dynamic models suggest clearing forests decreases, rather than increases, visits to these sites. Our results illustrate the importance of understanding both the spatial and temporal dynamics of ecosystem services for conservation decision-making.