Monitoring Trail Use on Public Lands Using Social Media Data and GIS

Keywords: GIS, social media, geotagged photos, space-time path, public lands, trail use
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Visitation information including how many people are visiting, where they are going, and how that change over the seasons, is basic information for public lands managers to make decision on trail and facility development, as well as for emergency medical services to understand the spatiotemporal pattern of trail use when developing preventive search and rescue plans. Monitoring trail use at large scale is costly and difficult. This paper presents a trail use monitoring method based on geotagged photos sourced from social media. It integrates individual space-time paths with geographic information to identify trail use types, activity times, and seasonal changes. A case study is conducted in the Grand Canyon National Park with geotagged photos are obtained from Flickr from 2008 to 2021. It reveals trail visitor flows, the seasonal changes, and estimated hiking times of different trails. The method can be applied to any public lands and be beneficial to remote or unmonitored ones.