Recipient Organization
WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY
886 CHESTNUT RIDGE RD RM 202
MORGANTOWN,WV 26505-2742
Performing Department
Forestry
Non Technical Summary
The overall purpose of this project is to begin a long-term research effort focused on sustainable multi-use outdoor recreation trail planning, development, assessment, and management. It will use West Virginia University (WVU) managed forest lands as a case study to do so. WVU and its stakeholder partners have a unique opportunity to plan, develop, evaluate, and learn from implementing an extensive, complex, and modern soft surface trail system. Trails provide communities and visitors with numerous benefits, including enhanced quality of life, access to recreation opportunities, connection to natural and cultural landscapes, improved health, and economic impacts to those communities. Even though we know trails provide these benefits, there are numerous questions that remain, including visitor perceptions related to shared-use trails (mountain biking and hiking, etc.), how trail users understand and make decisions related to trail difficulty classifications or ratings, or how newly emerging social media applications can be effectively harnessed to help trail managers understand visitor usage. WVU, with its abundant resources including the University Forest, can begin to answer those questions, and in turn provide others with new knowledge regarding sustainable natural surface trails development, management, and user experiences.An important benefit of this project is that it will be one of the only efforts to assess new sustainable trail building efforts from conception to finish, providing a longitudinal view of this process that is usually lacking. As we do this, we will target three important aspects of this trail development and management process: 1) assessing recreational use of these trails, include recreation visitor perceptions and experiences over time, 2) employing new inexpensive technology to more efficiently monitor visitors, and 3) evaluating communication efforts associated with trails.To accomplish this, we will collect a variety of data from trail stakeholder groups as well as trail visitors using focus groups, personal interviews, remote interviews, and surveys. Additional methods will entail using new technology to gather visitor data, such as visitor social media data and posts (e.g., Flickr) and fitness tracking app data (such as Strava) to collect user information in a remote, non-invasive and anonymous way.In summary, in the Morgantown area of WV, we have a unique opportunity to expand and even develop new sustainable soft surface multiuse trails, and over time, study this process and associated outcomes.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
50%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The West Virginia University Forest provides an ideal outdoor recreation laboratory to develop and manage a host of sustainable recreation activities. The broad goals of this project are to study the process of planning and development of multi-use trails. Additionally, we will evaluate management aspects related to creating these trails. After completing these various aspects of the project, we will then integrate the knowledge gained into improving sustainable trail management efforts.Specifically, our Goals are to:1) Gain a better understanding of recreation visitor perceptions and experiences over time as an outdoor multi-use trail system is developed and expanded,2) Assess new inexpensive and more efficient ways to monitor trail visitors, and3) Improve our understanding of communication efforts targeted at trail users.Link between Goals and Objectives:Goal 1: Gain a better understanding of recreation visitor perceptions and experiences over time as an outdoor multi-use trail system is developed and expanded.To accomplish this Goal, we will conduct periodic visitor and stakeholder research to obtain information about Forest recreation use. As noted above, initial research efforts will include the following Objectives:1a. Understand the demographics, activities and use patterns, motivations, and attitudes (e.g. preferences, satisfaction, conflict) of different types of trail users.1b. Assess how current, and then new, recreational use and activity patterns influence sustainable trail and natural resources management.Goal 2: Assess new inexpensive and more efficient ways to monitor trail visitors. Our Objectives linked to this goal are:2a. Estimate recreation use on targeted trails in Morgantown/Mon/Preston County area (the University Forest spans two counties).2b. Understand the use of new technology (such as fitness tracking app data) by trail users, as well as the role that this technology can play in providing accurate, timely, and inexpensive visitor monitoring for these trails.2c. Collect visitor use and preference data annually to develop trend information over time, and use this data to better manage the recreation activities on the trail system.Goal 3: Improve our understanding of communication efforts targeted at trail users. Our Objectives linked to this goal are:3a. Assess the effectiveness of trail signage on trail users, to reduce negative resource impacts, and improve visitor knowledge and satisfaction.3b. Develop and assess a trail rating or classification system & signs.
Project Methods
A mixed methods approach, using quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (focus groups, interviews, etc.) methods will be used to address the above goals and objectives (Bernard, 2000; Creswell, 2003; Newman & Benz, 1998). A variety of data collection methods will be used to do this, including focus groups, personal interviews, remote interviews, and surveys. Additional methods will entail mining visitor social media data and fitness tracking app data (such as Strava) for relevant visitor information (Rice et al., 2019). Details related to each of the main parts (Goals) of this project are expanded below.Goal 1: Gain a better understanding of recreation visitor perceptions and experiences over time as a trail system is developed. In order to assess this, we will collect data from visitors in various ways over the life of the project. We will collect data each year from different recreation trail user groups and stakeholders. Data will be collected via surveys, delivered either in person, or electronically (via email etc.). These surveys will assess visitor demographics, perceptions, attitudes, and user experiences (satisfaction, conflict, etc.). Collecting similar data at multiple points over the life of the project will provided a glimpse into more longitudinal trends and changes over time. Additional qualitative data collection methods using either interviews or focus groups will be used to supplement visitor surveys, to provide more context and richer data (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Patton, 2002).Goal 2: Assess new inexpensive and more efficient ways to monitor visitors. We will first mine existing and free crowd-sourced geo-referenced data sources (Rice et al., 2019) to estimate current and previous trail usage over the last 5 years. To do this, we will gather free GPS referenced trail data from Strava (a fitness activity tracking app widely used by runners and bikers) and overlay it with existing official and unofficial trail maps in GIS (Rice et al., 2019). This will allow us to estimate changes in use over time, as well as identify off-trail use, which will provide visitor insight into where unofficial (or social) trails could be potentially be rehabbed into official trails as the trail system is expanded. We will use the same methods annually to assess trail use changes over time moving forward. Next, we will explore similar, but potentially more costly technologically driven methods to gather additional visitor use data. This could include paying for additional finer resolution data related to trail visitation. It could also include collaborating with companies (such as Strava and other companies that have developed trail apps) that already gather trail use data that could be used in recreation management.Goal 3: Improve our understanding of communication efforts targeted at trail users. To accomplish this part of the project, we will use similar visitor data collection methods as noted under Goal 1--including visitor surveys, interviews, and focus groups. These will be used to assess and evaluate any signage developed for the trails and trail system.