Monitoring recreational activities in urban forests using long-term video observation

Urban forest management needs information about the amount and kinds of recreation use, in particular about emerging recreational activities such as Nordic walking and winter bicycling. Between 2003 and 2004, year-round use levels of recreational activities were investigated in a forest in Vienna using permanent time-lapse video recording and counts by human observers on sampling days. The amount of use, yearly, weekly and daily use patterns, as well as the group size of the traditional activity groups were compared with Nordic walking and winter bicycling to characterize these activities and to better understand recreation use. For all activity groups, the rates of participation varied significantly across most of the time dimensions, and the relationships between the time of day and rates of participation were different for individuals and groups. Nordic walkers displayed a temporal use pattern similar to that of jogging with workday evening and weekend morning use peaks, while winter bicycling was similar to bicycling activities with afternoon use peaks during snowy periods. Nordic walking and winter bicycling activities added to the multi-use character of the heavily used forest, but seemed not to increase the potential for user conflicts because of the current low participation rates and the Nordic walking group's avoidance of times of heavy use.