Recipient Organization
MICHIGAN STATE UNIV
(N/A)
EAST LANSING,MI 48824
Performing Department
COMMUNITY SUSTAIN
Non Technical Summary
Mountain biking (MTB) participation and related rural recreation amenities development have accelerated in recent years and surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has substantially impacted rural people and places, demonstrating MTB's ability to influence the outdoor recreation economy. Perceptions about MTB impacts can shape a rural community's desire to support MTB and broader outdoor recreation amenities development. This integrated project will examine perceived topical, spatial, and temporal MTB impacts, and the pandemic's influence on them, to provide insights and strategies to rural forested communities developing or considering MTB amenities. Examining these impacts; their intersections and pandemic changes; and their relationships to rural communities' place-making, economic growth, and well-being directly responds to AFRI priorities to benefit rural communities. Research activities will seek to understand how MTB impacts rural communities and cyclists across the northern forest and how the pandemic has affected these impacts. Activities will be guided with participation from collaborators representing a diversity of impact types, organization types, and northern forest states. These activities include MTB amenities mapping, amenity stakeholder interviews, use pattern assessments, and on-site and statewide cyclist surveys. Research approaches, results, and networks will be applied to education activities, including creating and implementing cross-university interdisciplinary common curriculum modules, training undergraduate research assistants, and mentoring a postdoctoral fellow and a masters student. Extension activities will also extend application of the research, by framing content for a consortium to foster a learning practitioner community and developing a community-focused guidebook on sustainably managing MTB and its role in rural economic development.
Animal Health Component
60%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
20%
Applied
60%
Developmental
20%
Goals / Objectives
This project examines intersecting mountain biking impacts (topical, spatial, and temporal). The four long-term goals are to: 1. Support rural communities' recreation amenities development, using mountain biking as a focal activity; 2. Promote stewardship of these amenities and their surrounding communities; 3. Increase opportunities for community of practice learning networks among these communities and related mountain biking stakeholders; and 4. Train the next generation of recreation managers, conservation social scientists, and engaged community members who implement place-based sustainable recreation as a rural economic development strategy. The research objective for this project is to gain a better understanding of how mountain biking impacts rural communities and cyclists across the northern forest, and how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected these impacts. The education objective of this project is to enhance and expand an active community of inquisitive and thoughtful learners. The extension objective is to inform stakeholder decisions about mountain biking's social, economic, and resource impacts to help them make appropriate management decisions for enhanced rural community vitality and stewardship.
Project Methods
This is a comparative case, multi-methods project across the northern forest (namely northern New England and Michigan for this project). There are eight main approaches to the work: 1. Constructing a recreation amenities map of mountain biking destinations across the region for learning and networking among managers and local community leaders (GIS-based methods); 2. Applying the integrated recreation amenities framework to mountain biking in these places and surrounding rural communities (conceptual application); 3. Considering the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on these community and cyclists' impacts and what this event may mean for trends in recreation participation, stewardship, and community engagements with these destinations (interviews, surveys, and potentially focus groups); 4. Creating, implementing, evaluating, and sharing common curriculum modules and reflection activities examining mountain biking's intersections with multiple topic areas and approaches (e.g., policy, sustainability, geography); 5. Training a cross-university team of undergraduate students - the next generation of recreation managers, economic development specialists, business owners, and rural community leaders - in lab and field-based approaches in how to measure, manage, interpret, and balance impacts of mountain biking at destination, community, and regional scales (field equipment such as trail and vehicle counters, trail cameras, and secondary data such as location and activity databases will be used); 6. Guiding a postdoctoral fellow and masters student through the research and mentoring process, providing them opportunities for leadership throughout the project and a related program of research / scholarship; 7. Creating pathways for collaborations between mountain biking-related stakeholders across the northern forest through a consortium to foster a learning practitioner community; and 8. Using the project's program of research and education to develop and deliver a community-focused guidebook to assist in sustainable rural economic development that manages mountain biking impacts in current and prospective destinations.