The Outdoor Equity App: A Master of Environmental Data Science Capstone

A collaboration between

and

About this App

This app is an interactive visualization tool that allows you to analyze patterns in the access and demand of visitors at reservable overnight reservable sites (such as campgrounds, cabins, hike-in, and more), using data from the Recreation Information Database (RIDB) and the United States Census Bureau. The analyses in this app allows you to explore relationships among attributes of recreation opportunities, reservation practices, and socioeconomic data from the regions of visitor origin.

Disclaimer: The Outdoor Equity App is not paid for by Recreation One Stop. Any plots or visuals created here are not intended for publication and require further analysis before making any determinations.

Access to nature and other outdoor recreation have well-documented positive impacts on mental physical well-being. In the United States, there are many levels of government that manage public land, including local, state, and federal agencies. Federal public land management agencies in the United States offer a wide variety of activities to visitors, such as picnicking in parks, hiking trails, tours, campsites, and more.

However, people from different socioeconomic and identity groups access federal public lands unequally due to historical discrimination and current inequities such as a lack of access to technology, not having the time or ability to plan vacations in advance, lack of knowledge of reservation systems, and cost.

The multi-agency program, Recreation One Stop (R1S), oversees the operations of Recreation.gov and aims to increase access to recreation by providing online resources about nationwide recreational opportunities, allowing visitors to make reservations, and making the associated data accessible to all. The rich data on visitors that R1S collects presents an opportunity for the creation of more robust data-driven analytical tools to understand the patterns and correlations of this unequal access across the country and within individual recreation areas. Decision-makers can use these tools to explore and visualize how recreational opportunities on federal public lands are accessed.

This app was created by Clarissa Boyajian and Halina Do-Linh. The app was created as the final capstone project for their Masters of Environmental Data Science degrees from the University of California’s Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. Both women are passionate about environmental justice, open science, the art of data visualizations, and spending time recreating outdoors.

Please reach out to either or both of us if you have questions about this project!

This app combines two datasets to allow you to visualize patterns in how people are making reservations to campsites. The app combines reservation data of overnight reservable sites from the Recreation Information Database (RIDB) with census data from the United States Census Bureau. The data is joined based on the home ZIP code of the person making the reservation. Currently the app includes data for all campsites in California and all reservations made in 2018.

View our technical documentation to learn more about how the app was built.

Example Questions to Explore

How far in advance do you have to reserve your site if you want to go to Upper Pines in Yosemite National Forest? This was the most visited site in all of California in 2018. Maybe you’ve visited Yosemite already, but are interested in visiting another nearby campsite, Dinkey Creek in Sierra National Forest. How far in advance will you need to book that site?

To answer this question, click on “Data Summary” under the “Analysis” tab in the navigation bar. Then select the variable you want to see, in this case “booking window” and then select that you want to compare two sites. Then scroll down to select the two sites that you’re interested in comparing.

For this example you would select, “National Park Service” from the agency drop-down, “Yosemite National Park” from the administrative unit drop-down, and “Upper Pines” from the reservable site drop-down. Then for the second plot you would select “US Forest Service”, then “Sierra National Forest”, and then “Dinkey Creek”.

You will then see the two plots below. The y-axis shows the total number of reservations that are made at different numbers of days out from the start of a trip, shown on the x-axis. Hover over the bars on these histograms to see more information about the percentage of reservations made at different booking windows.

Is there a difference in how far people who live in communities with high percentages of different races travel to campsites?

For this example, we’re interested in Upper Pines in Yosemite National Forest (the campsite with the most annual visits in California). To answer this question, click on “Data Relationships” under the “Analysis” tab in the navigation bar. Then select the variables you want to compare, in this case “Race x Distance traveled”, and the site you’re interested in. Then scroll down to see two plots.

Both plots have the eight US Census racial groups on the y-axis. The lollipop plot on the left shows the median distance traveled by people who live in communities with high proportions of people from each racial group. The bar plot on the right shows the total number of reservations to the selected site by people who live in communities with high proportions of each racial group.

Hover over the circles and bars on these plots to see more information about each group.

Is there a difference in how far people who live in communities with different median incomes travel to campsites?

For this example, we’re interested in Upper Pines in Yosemite National Forest (the campsite with the most annual visits in California). To answer this question, click on “Data Relationships” under the “Analysis” tab in the navigation bar. Then select the variables you want to compare, in this case “Race x Distance traveled”, and the site you’re interested in. Then scroll down to see two plots.

Both plots have ten median-income brackets on the y-axis. The lollipop plot on the left shows the median distance traveled by people who live in communities with a median household income within each range. The bar plot on the right shows the total number of reservations to the selected site by people who live in communities with a median household income within each range.

Hover over the circles and bars on these plots to see more information about each group.

What is the visitorshed of Upper Pines in Yosemite National Forest (the campsite with the most annual visits in California)?

A visitorshed is the area where visitors are coming from for a specific site. To create visitorshed maps, click on “Visitorshed Maps” under the “Analysis” tab in the navigation bar. Then select the site you’re interested in. Then scroll down to see two maps. Please be patient, these maps can take a few seconds to load.

The first map shows the total number of visits coming from each state or US territory. The second map shows the location of the selected park as well as the total number of visits coming from each ZIP code within the state.

Zoom in and out, and click on a state, territory, or ZIP code to get more details about visitation.

US Visitorshed

CA Visitorshed

A data summary plot will show the distribution of the data for a single variable, at a single site

What you need to know:

  • Depending on the variable, a summary of the variable will be visualized as either a histogram, a bar plot, or a density plot.
  • Explanatory text will appear for visuals that may require more information to correctly interpret the data summary plot.
  • There are 10 variables to choose from, six come from recreation data and four come from census data.
  • There are over 400 sites to choose from and are managed by one of the following federal agencies: Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service, US Army Corps of Engineers, and US Forest Service.
  • To visualize a single site, select 1 or select 2 to compare two sites.
  • A plot can be saved as a png using the camera icon which is visible when hovering over a plot.

If the plot is not appearing or if it is not updating, please click the reset button or try refreshing the page.

Select a variable and how many sites to compare

A data relationships plot compares a US census variable to a recreation variable

What you need to know:

  • Explanatory text will appear for visuals that may require more information to correctly interpret the data relationship plot.
  • There are 24 relationships to choose from, six variables come from recreation data and four come from census data.
  • There are over 400 sites to choose from and are managed by one of the following federal agencies: Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service, US Army Corps of Engineers, and US Forest Service.
  • Many relationships include two plots. The plot on the left visualizes the selected data relationship and the plot on the right visualizes the number of visits to the selected site by different US census groups.
  • A plot can be saved as a png using the camera icon which is visible when hovering over a plot.

If the plot is not appearing or if it is not updating, please click the reset button or try refreshing the page.

Select a relationship and a site

A visitorshed map shows the number of visits coming from different states and California ZIP codes for a site

What you need to know:

  • A visitorshed is the area where visitors are coming from for the selected site.
  • The map on the left shows all US states plus Puerto Rico, where a darker green color indicates a larger number of visits to the selected site coming from that state or territory.
  • The map on the right shows all California ZIP codes, where a darker pink color indicates a larger number of visits to the selected site coming from that ZIP code.
  • Explore these maps further by zooming in and out, and clicking on a state, territory, or ZIP code to get more details about visitation.
  • There are over 400 sites to choose from and are managed by one of the following federal agencies: Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service, US Army Corps of Engineers, and US Forest Service.

Please be patient, maps take a few seconds to load.

If the map is not appearing or if it is not updating, please click the reset button or try refreshing the page.

Select a site

US Visitorshed Map

CA Visitorshed Map

Metadata

The metadata for the joined RIDB-ACS dataset defines all variables. There are a total of 39 variables in the joined dataset. There is also an option to download the metatdata.

The term “provenance” refers to the record trail that accounts for the origin of a variable. In this case, provenance refers to the scripts used to create the variable. These scripts can be found in the Outdoor Equity Repo on GitHub.

The Outdoor Equity App is not paid for by Recreation One Stop. Any plots or visuals created here are not intended for publication and require further analysis before making any determinations.