Mobile phone data reveals spatiotemporal recreational patterns in conservation areas during the COVID pandemic.

ABSTRACT: Understanding visitation patterns is crucial in developing effective conservation strategies for protected areas, as it serves as an indicator for operating an ecosystem management plan that balances biodiversity and ecosystem services intertwined with public health and social benefits. However, limited data availability during the COVID-19 pandemic has hindered the comprehensive understanding of temporal changes in realized cultural ecosystem services, particularly in recreational activities within these areas. Our study utilized GPS data from mobile phones to quantify visitor characteristics and their contribution to recreational ecosystem services in protected areas at a national scale during the COVID-19 pandemic. We estimated the pandemic's relative impact on visitor patterns at 98 vi

SUBMITTER: Kim JY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10660657 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature