Research Note: A Multi-Method Approach to Monitor Recreational Trail Usage in Complex Spatial Settings

Abstract

Trail use by pedestrians has become more popular in the United States over the last decade although few studies explore the use of technology to monitor high use trails. Monitoring trail users is an important part of trail management and an optimal monitoring system usually depends on site-specific characteristics. The objective of this study was to demonstrate how using a multi-methods system to monitor backcountry trail usage in complex spatial settings can be a useful approach for collecting the information that trail managers need. Given the national growth in recreational hiking, we were particularly interested in exploring these issues for highly visited trails close to urban areas and selected a portion of the Larch Trail leading to the top of Multnomah Falls for the study. The multi-methods approach that we used included a combination of automated infrared sensor counts, manual counts, parking lot data from an inductive loop, and travel time estimates collected with low-energy Bluetooth sensors. We found that using multiple methods allowed for a cost-effective and rich data set that considered the site characteristics and the specific need of the trail managers. We expect that many backcountry trail settings have complex landscape and physical design without robust pre-existing baseline data and hope that our insights will aid trail managers as they strive for a sustainable balance between human use and landscape impact.