Revealing spatial and temporal patterns of outdoor recreation in the European Alps and their surroundings

Outdoor recreation contributes vitally to human well-being, but spatio-temporal mapping on large scales of this ecosystem service is rarely addressed in a comprehensive manner. In this study, we aim to map recreation supply, demand, and flow, combining different approaches and data sources, including spatially explicit indicators and crowd-sourced information from social media. We analyse spatial and temporal patterns in the European Alps and their surrounding areas (Alpine Space area) and explore societal preferences. Our results indicate that especially mountainous areas provide high ecosystem service supply, while high demand is characteristic of strongly urbanised areas. The spatio-temporal pattern of flow hot spots shows two major trends: recreational landscapes around urban agglomerations are frequented all year round, whereas visitation rates in remote mountain areas depend greatly on the season. By means of a cluster analysis, we identify five types of municipalities, distinguishing municipalities with little importance for recreation, prevailing demand, or supply, and highly used areas. Further, our results suggest that societal preferences can be explained by landscape attributes and tourism infrastructure. In addition to revealing a large-scale spatio-temporal pattern, this study explores methodological possibilities to provide a basis for decision-making and landscape planning regarding recreational ecosystem services.