Characterizing, mapping and valuing the demand for forest recreation using crowdsourced social media data.

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Forestry
• Ecosystem Services

Background:

• Forest recreation mapping and valuation are complex, hindering sustainable forest management.
• Crowdsourced social media data offers a potential solution for assessing forest recreation demand.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the use of crowdsourced social media data for mapping and valuing forest recreation demand in British Columbia (BC).
• To identify temporal and spatial trends in forest recreation and estimate visitor origins.
• To quantify annual recreational visits and estimate the economic value of recreational ecosystem services.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of over 350,000 geotagged Flickr images to assess social media data.
• Linear regression modeling calibrated with secondary data to estimate annual recreational visits.
• Crowdsourced travel cost approach to value recreational ecosystem services in BC provincial parks.

Main Results:

• Over 44 million annual recreational experiences were estimated in BC forests, with summer and weekend peaks.
• Recreational ecosystem service values in five provincial parks ranged from approximately 2.9 to 35.0 million CAN$/year.
• Social media data effectively characterized, quantified, and mapped forest recreation demand, particularly in peri-urban areas.

Conclusions:

• Social media data is a valuable tool for incorporating forest recreation values into management plans.
• This approach enhances the achievement of fully sustainable forest management.
• Future research can leverage this rapidly growing field for improved forest recreation studies.