The Influence of Weather on the Spatial Behavior of Visitors within Utah National Parks

Authors

Emily Wilkins, Utah State UniversityFollow
Jordan Smith, Utah State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Report

Publisher

Institute of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism

Publication Date

12-18-2020

First Page

1

Last Page

6

Abstract

Social media has been increasingly used to understand visitor use in parks and protected areas (Wilkins, Wood, & Smith, 2020). When people post photos on social media, these photos often contain information on the location, time, and date the photo was taken; all of this information is stored as metadata. Using geotagged images from Flickr, we explored how summer visitors to Utah’s national parks may vary their locations within the park based on the daily weather. We specifically looked at the elevations visitors went to within the parks, as well as their distances from roads, waterbodies, parking areas, and buildings.

Recommended Citation

Wilkins, Emily and Smith, Jordan, "The Influence of Weather on the Spatial Behavior of Visitors within Utah National Parks" (2020). All Current Publications. Paper 2152.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/extension_curall/2152