Stronger together: integrating geospatial data to understand human outdoor recreation

Abstract

Outdoor recreation is an increasingly important activity worldwide. To support outdoor recreational opportunities, it is essential to understand when and where people recreate, what they do when recreating, who are using the outdoor spaces for recreation, and why. Human outdoor recreation behavior has been increasingly studied with a variety of novel geospatial data sources that have become available in the past few decades. Multiple studies have applied user-generated geospatial data from social media, mobile network operators, GNSS/GPS tracking, or participatory mapping to understand outdoor recreation. Yet, the extent of the use of these data sources remains unclear. In this scoping review, we characterize the quantity and quality of the literature using geospatial data sources and further outline what types of information have been drawn from these data sources. Our review shows that the analyzed geospatial data sources vary considerably in terms of the depth of relevant information that can be extracted from them. Future research and management interested in human outdoor recreation should apply a combination of geospatial data sources, mixing especially active and passive sensing approaches to unlock their information and knowledge potential.