A newer version of this project is available. See below for other available versions.

Weather & Summer Spatial Behavior of U.S. National Park Visitors (Flickr data 2006 - 2018)

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Emily J. Wilkins, Utah State University; Jordan W. Smith, Utah State University

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
  Maps-for-each-study-unit-showing-spatial-distributions 05/09/2020 12:13:PM
  Misc-datasets 04/30/2020 03:13:PM
  R-code-for-data-analysis 04/30/2020 04:15:PM
  R-code-for-data-collection-and-processing 04/30/2020 04:20:PM
  Visitation-correlations-between-Flickr-and-NPS-data 04/30/2020 02:43:PM
all_ecoregions_Flickr.csv text/csv 183 MB 04/30/2020 10:30:AM

Project Citation: 

Wilkins, Emily J., and Smith, Jordan W. Weather & Summer Spatial Behavior of U.S. National Park Visitors (Flickr data 2006 - 2018). Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2020-05-09. https://doi.org/10.3886/E119191V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary This dataset corresponds to a paper titled "Social media data reveal ecoregional variation in how weather influences visitor behavior in U.S. National Parks," which is currently under review. The paper is authored by Emily J. Wilkins, Peter D. Howe, and Jordan W. Smith.

In this paper, we investigate how daily temperature and precipitation in the summer influence visitors' spatial behavior in 110 U.S. National Park Service Units. We use Flickr data from 2006 - 2018 to uncover visitors locations within parks, and connect each geotagged point to the weather at the date the photo was taken (using Daymet data), as well as nearby infrastructure and environmental features (using OpenStreetMap data). 

While we cannot provide the raw Flickr data due to privacy concerns, we include the final database we used after all data collection, cleaning, and processing (all_ecoregions_Flickr.csv). All personally identifiable information is deleted from this database. This database was used to run the statistical tests presented in the paper, as well as generate the maps (R code included). 

We also include maps of each of the 110 study sites that show the general summer spatial distributions of Flickr posts in each park, and well as how the spatial distributions differ by hot and cold summer days. 
Funding Sources:  View help for Funding Sources National Science Foundation (1633756); Utah State University Office of Research; Institute of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism at Utah State University

Scope of Project

Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage U.S. National Parks
Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 2006 – 2018 (Data only from May - September)
Collection Date(s):  View help for Collection Date(s) 12/2019 – 12/2019
Universe:  View help for Universe Any visitor to U.S. National Parks who has uploaded a photo to Flickr. 
Data Type(s):  View help for Data Type(s) geographic information system (GIS) data; images: photographs, drawings, graphical representations; program source code
Collection Notes:  View help for Collection Notes All data was collected by writing Python and R scripts to interact with APIs.

Methodology

Sampling:  View help for Sampling
We collected all Flickr data within the study sites, and filtered the dataset to only include one post per user, per day, within a 10 meter radius. 
Data Source:  View help for Data Source
  1. Flickr (2006 - 2018)
  2. Daymet daily weather data (2006 - 2018; used R package daymetr)
  3. OpenStreetMap (downloaded December 2019; used R package osmdata)
  4. USGS Point Elevation Query Service (1/3 arc-sec resolution; used R package elevatr)
Collection Mode(s):  View help for Collection Mode(s) web scraping
Unit(s) of Observation:  View help for Unit(s) of Observation Individuals

Related Publications

Unable to retrieve related publications.
Download this project

Loading usage statistics...

Published Versions

V2 [2021-01-26]

V1 [2020-05-09]

Export Metadata

Dublin Core

DDI 2.5

Report a Problem

Found a serious problem with the data, such as disclosure risk or copyrighted content? Let us know.

This material is distributed exactly as it arrived from the data depositor. ICPSR has not checked or processed this material. Users should consult the investigator(s) if further information is desired.