Applying public participation GIS (PPGIS) to inform and manage visitor conflict along multi-use trails

ABSTRACT

Managing visitor conflict is an important task in protected areas. This study used public participation GIS (PPGIS) mapping and a visitor survey to research conflicts between mountain bikers and horse riders, and other groups frequenting trails for tourism and recreation in national parks in northern Sydney (Australia). The goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of the PPGIS for determining conflict locations, and to integrate stated reasons and conflict resolution measures in a model. The survey showed that 42% of mountain bikers and 69% of horse riders had experienced conflicts, with each other, motorbike riders, walkers/hikers and dog walkers. PPGIS effectively mapped concurrent usage intensity to predict potential conflict locations over a reasonably large study area thereby identifying trails of the greatest concern. PPGIS also offered high-quality GIS visualisation options, and the novelty of the PPGIS increased participant engagement. We evaluated PPGIS compared to questionnaire-based surveying, direct visitor observations, GPS tracking, traffic counters and cameras. Because visitor conflict occurs within a spatial context, conflict management will require greater spatial knowledge of visitor activity, which can be obtained through the innovative PPGIS mapping. A conflict model is presented that integrates this study's empirical findings on conflict reasons and resolutions with existing conflict theory.

KEYWORDS:

• Public participation GIS
• recreational conflict
• spatial distributions
• protected areas
• mountain biking
• horse riding

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge comments by the editor and three anonymous reviewers on an earlier version of this paper. The authors thank horse rider and mountain biker clubs, associations, other forums and outlets that promoted this research. We thank Monica Torland for her assistance with the coding of open-ended survey comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Isabelle D. Wolf

Dr. Isabelle D. Wolf is an urban green space and protected areas specialist including on all aspects of park visitor research and monitoring, sustainable and outcome-focused visitor experience development and management. She is leading GIS-related visitor-monitoring projects. Trained as an ecologist, her specialities are the human dimensions of ecosystems, with work on people and animal behaviour and flora and fauna communities among other in tourism and recreations systems. Isabelle has a PhD degree from the University of New South Wales and has published in both social and environmental science journals.

Greg Brown

Greg Brown is a professor and Department Head, Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences, at California Polytechnic State University, and adjunct faculty, University of Queensland. Professor Brown has published in the areas of land-use planning, natural resource policy, the human dimensions of ecosystem management, parks and protected areas management, and socio-economic assessment of rural communities. His current research involves developing methods to expand and enhance public involvement in environmental planning by having individual map spatial measures of landscape values, management preferences, and special places in both terrestrial and marine environments.

Teresa Wohlfart

Teresa Wohlfart holds a BSc degree in Agricultural Sciences and MSc degree in Environmental Sciences and Resources Management from Justus-Liebig University of Giessen, Germany. She is collaborating with the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage on applied park visitor research in Sydney, Australia. Her expertise extends to innovative visitor-monitoring techniques including GPS tracking and GIS. Teresa has a strong interest in communicating sustainability and conservation values through research outcomes.