Exploring coping behaviours of Sunday and workday visitors due to dense use conditions in an urban forest

Abstract

Undesired social conditions such as crowding can trigger coping behaviours of urban forest visitors to avoid these. Coping behaviours, such as spatial or temporal displacement, have implications for natural and social area management. However, coping behaviours have rarely been explored in the urban context and coping research has not differentiated between workday and Sunday visitors, although there are remarkable deviations in use intensities and user composition on these days, potentially affecting crowding perceptions and coping. Coping behaviours due to crowding were compared between on-site Sunday and workday visitors (N=330) in a protected urban forest in Vienna. More than half of the visitors perceived the forest as crowded on Sundays and 44% reported coping behaviours. Workday visitors were more likely to cope compared to Sunday visitors. Temporal, intra-area and inter-area displacement, activity displacement, as well as changes in dog-walking behaviour were reported. Sunday and workday copers reported higher crowding perceptions and were more engaged in dog walking. Workday visitors compensated for dissatisfying social site conditions with coping behaviours, while Sunday copers were less satisfied despite their coping efforts. Management implications are discussed.