Abstract
Effective quantification of visitation is important for understanding many impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on national parks and other protected areas. In this study, we mapped and analyzed the spatiotemporal patterns of visitation for six national parks in the western U.S., taking advantage of large mobility records sampled from mobile devices and released by SafeGraph as part of their Social Distancing Metric dataset. Based on comparisons with visitation statistics released by the U.S. National Park Service, our results confirmed that mobility records from digital devices can effectively capture park visitation patterns but with much finer spatiotemporal granularity. In general, triggers of visitation changes corresponded well with the parks’ management responses to COVID-19, with all six parks showing dramatic decreases in the number of visitors (compared to 2019) beginning in March 2020 and continuing through April and May. As restrictions were eased to promote access to the parks and the benefits associated with outdoor recreation, visitation in 2020 approached or even passed that from 2019 by late summer or early autumn at most of the parks. The results also revealed that parks initially saw the greatest increases in visitation after reopening originating from nearby states, with visitorship coming from a broader range of states as time passed. Our study highlights the capability of mobility data for providing spatiotemporally explicit knowledge of place visitation.
Highlights
IntroductionPublisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
While the news and social media provided accounts of wildlife returning to closed parks [5], protected areas were vulnerable to increases in a range of illegal activities and threats to important biological and non-biological resources [6,7]
Beginning in March and April, park visitation diverged between the two years as the spread of the virus in 2020 raised concerns about travel and triggered the President’s emergency declaration in early March and the various park closures in late March and early April
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 had profound effects on national parks and other protected areas around the world [1]. Park closures, and reduced visitor services severely affected visitation, tourism revenue and economies in nearby communities, and even local stakeholder engagement [2,3]. While the news and social media provided accounts of wildlife returning to closed parks [5], protected areas were vulnerable to increases in a range of illegal activities and threats to important biological and non-biological resources [6,7]
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