•Increases in recreational activity during COVID-19 pandemic in Oslo, Norway.•Increases sustained up to 6 months post-lockdown.•Largest increases were in protected areas and cultural ...landscapes.•Teenager demographic exhibited greatest relative increase.
In Oslo, as elsewhere, the COVID-19 outbreak and the following lockdown measures during spring 2020 led to increased use of urban green infrastructure. Whether this has led to more durable changes in recreation patterns remains an open question. We used mobile tracking data from 53,000 STRAVA users to explore the longevity of increases in recreational activity. We compared 2020 activity levels relative to a weather benchmark (i.e. baseline), defined as the activity one would have expected given the time of year and prevailing weather conditions. Recreational activity increased by 240% during the five weeks of comprehensive lockdown and were maintained until the summer vacation period in June/July when they dropped to baseline levels. Yet, during August they increased again to 89% above baseline. Although activity increased across all city land use zones, after lockdown there was a shift away from residential and commercial zones toward city green spaces including forests and protected areas. Cultural landscapes and protected areas received disproportionately high activity levels relative to the length of recreational trails available within them. Recreationists in the teenager demographic (13–19) exhibited a four-fold increase in their share of the STRAVA user-base at the start of lockdown. The COVID-19 pandemic and its disruptions to the status quo has had lasting effects over the short-term on the way Norwegian citizens recreate. Our findings reinforce the value of urban nature and open spaces for societal pandemic preparedness, particularly youths, during and after times of crisis.
The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it significant changes to human mobility patterns and working environments. We aimed to explore how social distancing measures affected ...recreational use of urban green space during the partial lockdown in Oslo, Norway. Mobile tracking data from thousands of recreationists were used to analyze high resolution spatio-temporal changes in activity. We estimated that outdoor recreational activity increased by 291% during lockdown relative to a 3 yr average for the same days. This increase was significantly greater than expected after adjusting for the prevailing weather and time of year and equates to approx. 86 000 extra activities per day over the municipality (population of 690 000). Both pedestrians (walking, running, hiking) and cyclists appeared to intensify activity on trails with higher greenviews and tree canopy cover, but with differences in response modulated by trail accessibility and social distancing preferences. The magnitude of increase was positively associated with trail remoteness, suggesting that green spaces facilitated social distancing and indirectly mitigated the spread of COVID-19. Finally, pedestrian activity increased in city parks, peri-urban forest, as well as protected areas, highlighting the importance of access to green open spaces that are interwoven within the built-up matrix. These findings shed new light on the value of urban nature as resilience infrastructure during a time of crisis. The current pandemic also reveals some important dilemmas we might face regarding green justice on the path towards urban planning for future sustainable cities.
Background Communication is a central tool used to manage the balance between outdoor recreation and environmental protection in natural areas. Several studies have evaluated different communication ...measures in case studies, but rarely are these measures compared across contexts. We review the literature guided by the question: what is the scope of evidence of on-site communication to change human behavior towards a more sustainable direction in outdoor recreation? Taking natural areas as our starting point, we map research-based distribution and abundance of communication measures, with emphasis on their outcomes and study design. Methods The target population for our mapping review are outdoor recreationists and nature-based tourists who visit natural or near-natural settings. We examined studies that have crafted written, oral and visual intervention measures to change behavior by using persuasion, education and information rather than legal restrictions or bans. Examples of challenges addressed with communication measures include proper waste disposal, using designated trails, minimizing wear and tear at campsites, avoid disturbing wildlife, and encouraging appropriate and safe behavior. We did not restrict our search geographically. We searched publication databases for peer-reviewed published articles (WoS, Scopus) and forward and backward citation chasing. To identify grey literature we used the database IRMA and internet searches in Google Scholar supplemented with specialist searches. Inclusion criteria and related search terms were based on PICO and included population (P: people participating in outdoor recreation in natural settings), terms that denoted intervention (I: on-site communication measures in situ vs. C: no communication measures) and terms that denoted outcome (O: changed behavior). We screened first by title and abstract and finally full text. For each article selected for full-text screening, metadata was extracted on key variables of interest such as behavior category, context, targeted population, study design and outcomes. Review findings Overall, we identified 54 studies that were assessed in the review. Our review documents growing academic interest looking at actual behavior change in outdoor recreation. Theory is often subsidiary to attempted behavioral change via communication and different situational aspects, such as targeted visitor populations and environmental context, as well as psychological factors remain underexplored in the literature. The primary communication medium in the reviewed papers is passive use of signs. Awareness raising is the dominant communication mode, but other modes such as emotions, identity, and social norms are common. The geographic distribution of the studies is highly skewed to the United States. Conclusions The amassed studies have an uneven focus on different settings and mediums used to change behavior. Research could benefit from investigating different contexts and the state of the natural environment before and after interventions. We advocate for casting a wider disciplinary net and interest in qualitative investigations to produce data-rich studies of where and how sustainable behavior is encouraged and eventually achieved. Collectively, different disciplinary perspectives are required to understand the aspects that contribute to sustainable, and sustained, behavior change. It is important to distinguish what aspects of behavior change could be generalized across settings, and which purely contextual aspects drive behavior change. Keywords: Behavior psychology, Persuasion, Visitor management, Communication theory, Conservation messaging, Conservation psychology
We have investigated public preferences for use intensity and visual quality of forest recreational infrastructure. Forest infrastructure covers five classes, along a continuum from unmarked paths to ...paved walkways. Altogether, 39 sites were categorized into the five classes and measured with automatic counters. A sample of 545 respondents living in southeastern and middle Norway were asked to rate 15 forest scenes and 35 preconceptions of recreational settings. The path scenarios were depicted as digitally calibrated photos that systematically displayed physical path feature in boreal, semi-natural settings. Survey participants showed a clearly greater preference for photos and preconceptions of forests settings containing minor elements of forest infrastructure; unmarked paths received the highest score and forest roads/walkways/bikeways the lowest. We identified a clear mismatch between public preferences for forest infrastructure and the intensity of use; the less appreciated infrastructure was the most used. Planning and management has to consider these different needs for recreational infrastructure, and we propose an area zoning system that meets the different segments of forest visitors.
Many publications make use of opportunistic data, such as citizen science observation data, to infer large‐scale properties of species’ distributions. However, the few publications that use ...opportunistic citizen science data to study animal ecology at a habitat level do so without accounting for spatial biases in opportunistic records or using methods that are difficult to generalize. In this study, we explore the biases that exist in opportunistic observations and suggest an approach to correct for them. We first examined the extent of the biases in opportunistic citizen science observations of three wild ungulate species in Norway by comparing them to data from GPS telemetry. We then quantified the extent of the biases by specifying a model of the biases. From the bias model, we sampled available locations within the species’ home range. Along with opportunistic observations, we used the corrected availability locations to estimate a resource selection function (RSF). We tested this method with simulations and empirical datasets for the three species. We compared the results of our correction method to RSFs obtained using opportunistic observations without correction and to RSFs using GPS‐telemetry data. Finally, we compared habitat suitability maps obtained using each of these models. Opportunistic observations are more affected by human access and visibility than locations derived from GPS telemetry. This has consequences for drawing inferences about species’ ecology. Models naïvely using opportunistic observations in habitat‐use studies can result in spurious inferences. However, sampling availability locations based on the spatial biases in opportunistic data improves the estimation of the species’ RSFs and predicted habitat suitability maps in some cases. This study highlights the challenges and opportunities of using opportunistic observations in habitat‐use studies. While our method is not foolproof it is a first step toward unlocking the potential of opportunistic citizen science data for habitat‐use studies.
We provide a novel method to use citizen science data for fine‐scale studies.
Background Communication is a central tool in managing the balance between outdoor recreation and environmental protection. Several studies have evaluated different communication measures in nature ...area case studies, but rarely are these measures compared across contexts. We systematically map the literature guided by the question, what is the evidence base of on-site communication in outdoor recreation to change human behavior towards a more sustainable direction? Taking vulnerable natural areas as our starting point, we map distribution and abundance of communication measures, study design and outcome-related themes. Methods The target population for our mapping review (hereafter review) are outdoor recreationists and nature-based tourists who visit natural or near-natural settings. We will examine the studies that have crafted written, oral and visual intervention measures to change behavior by using persuasion, education and information instead of legal restrictions or bans. Some examples of challenges addressed with communication measures are proper waste disposal, using designated trails, minimizing wear and tear at campsites, avoid disturbing wildlife, and encouraging appropriate and safe behavior. No geographic restrictions will be applied but we will focus on protected areas. We will search publication databases for peer-reviewed published articles using internet and specialist searches to identify grey literature in English. We will screen first by title, followed by abstract and finally full text. For each article selected for full-text screening, metadata will be extracted on key variables of interest. The extracted data from the coding will be used to group and compare the studies to reveal knowledge gaps and knowledge clusters. We will briefly describe findings from the included studies. The review will help identify what type of human behavior researchers have addressed with communication in nature management and conservation. In addition it will highlight which communication measures are frequently used in each behavioral context. It will identify which frameworks and communication theories have been the basis for designing intervention measures and provide support to practitioners and researchers in future framing and implementation of communication measures in natural settings. Keywords: Messaging studies, Persuasion, Human behavior, Nature-based tourism, Visitor management in national parks, Communication theory
This study investigated public aesthetic preferences regarding naturally occurring dead and downed wood in Norwegian boreal forests. In an Internet-based survey conducted in cooperation with a ...commercial polling company, 1082 respondents from south-eastern and middle Norway were asked to rate 24 photos of forest settings. All photos had been taken at a stand level in primary or lightly altered semi-natural forests, although this was not disclosed to the respondents. Survey participants showed a clearly greater preference for images of forests settings containing little or no visible dead or downed wood. Participants also rated photos of forest settings with the dead wood elements removed through digital manipulation substantially higher than otherwise identical non-manipulated photos. However, public aesthetic perception of dead wood in forest setting did appear to be influenced by their understanding of the ecological benefits dead wood provides to forest biodiversity. Photos shown with an accompanying text describing the ecology or natural history of forest scenes containing dead wood received significantly higher ratings than identical photos without accompanying text. Our results suggest that those involved in maintaining or increasing forest biodiversity by retaining standing and fallen dead wood also need to incorporate outreach efforts that educate the public about the ecological benefits of these forest elements.
Human hunters are described as 'superpredators' with a unique ecology. Chronic wasting disease among cervids and African swine fever among wild boar are emerging wildlife diseases in Europe, with ...huge economic and cultural repercussions. Understanding hunter movements at broad scales has implications for how to control the spread of these diseases. Here we show, based on analysis of the settlement patterns and movements of hunters of reindeer (n = 9,685), red deer (n = 47,845), moose (n = 60,365) and roe deer (n = 42,530) from across Norway (2001-2017), that hunter density was more closely linked to human density than prey density and that hunters were largely migratory, aggregated with increasing regional prey densities and often used dogs. Hunter movements extended across Europe and to other continents. Our results provide extensive evidence that the broad-scale movements and residency patterns of postindustrial hunters relative to their prey differ from those of large carnivores.
In the context of national park management, landscape conservation, and tourism development in a mountain region in Norway, the aim of the research is to analyse how tourists, residents, and local ...stakeholders experience and practise their participation in the landscapes. A mixed methods approach was used, which included focus group meetings, semi-structured interviews, an on-site survey, and two Internet surveys to gain in-depth knowledge of tourists' and locals' relations to and evaluations of the landscape in the studied national park region, which comprised the park itself and eight protected landscape areas. The results revealed that many of the tourists visiting the national park considered the area it covered was a wilderness, while locals considered the area's authenticity was closely connected to cultural traditions and a long-lasting interconnectedness between people and landscape. As both locals and tourists shared a desire to maintain the wildlife and landscape characteristics of the national park, authenticity may serve as a common denominator for emphasizing local development, outdoor activities, and meeting points outside the boundary of the park. The authors conclude that involving tourists in a knowledge process that provides insights into the past and present livelihoods of communities and the use of the natural resources could help to enhance tourists' experiences, but without compromising local understandings of authenticity.
•Identifying the value gap between locals and tourists by using a mixed methods approach.•Portrays the dichotomy of nature and society in a local context.•Describe the contextual and dynamic relation between people and nature.•Provides an example of empirical way to explore mountain environment complexity.•Managing landscape by an understanding of authenticity.
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