Using ADK-TReD to quantify recreation and support

management and planning in the Adirondack Park, NY

Abigail Larkin and Colin Beier
Department of Forest and Natural Resources Management, Adirondack Ecological Center, SUNY-ESF Syracuse, NY
What is the ADK-TReD Project?

ADK-TReD Development

The Adirondack Park Trail Register Database (ADK-TReD)

is designed to collect trail register data from across
the Adirondack Park. It currently contains data from
2012. Trail registers (Fig. 1) are a voluntary monitoring
system maintained by the New York State Department
of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to support safe
recreation on state-owned trails. Registers are typically
located at the start of trails or other recreation access
points. There are over 250 registers across the 6 million
acre Adirondack Park (Fig. 2). Visitors voluntarily sign
in at the register and provide specic trip details.

We applied a mixed sample design to record trail register data in Excel, and included a spatial reference
(ArcGIS 10) for each register (Fig. 2), with the objective of compiling comprehensive data on trail register
use. The TReD crew (Fig. 4) processed all trail registers received from regional DEC ofces, and recorded:
1) Every 5th entry for origins and destinations, 2) the rst date of each page and month, and 3) every entry
of group size and length of stay.

Broader Applications of ADK-TReD

Management

The resulting database allows for multiple queries, including by user or trail register characteristics,
management units, or land use classications. Spatial queries and analyses were conducted in ArcGIS 10,
while additional analyses were conducted in Program R.
Data gathered on visitor use can have a variety of applications (Fig. 3), including addressing the following:
1. What is the distribution of recreational use?

This database offers a quantitative and spatial

understanding of recreation in the context of a 2. Who (geographically) is using the trail system?
complex, protected landscape. Information on trail
register use across time and space is fundamental for
informed management decisions and can be leveraged
to support broader planning and decision making in
the Adirondack Park (Fig. 3).

Fig. 1: Example of an Adirondack Park trail register

Monitoring Visitor Use and the

Adirondack Park: How and Why

Fig. 5: Seasonal distribution of user

days for all active trails

TReD Results:

Marketing

ADK
TReD

Economic
Development

Research

Stewardship

Fig. 3: Applications of a trail register database

A. How many visitors?

B. When do they visit?
C. Where do they go?
A. How many visitors are in/out-of-state?
B. How far will in-state visitors travel?
Fig. 4: TReD crew processing register data

Fig. 6: Registers compared by seasonal distribution of user days

212 registers, 2600 hours to process (Fig. 2 type and degree of use)

Fig. 7: User preference between two registers on a loop trail

1A. TReD recorded 562,502 user days. Most groups consisting of 2-4 users (66%) on a day trip (88%).

Managers often use multiple direct or indirect visitor 1B. Total use demonstrated a clear seasonal trend (Fig. 5). Individual registers revealed divergent seasonal use trends (Fig. 6) and user preferences (Fig. 7).
use monitoring methods1,3,7,8. Information on visitor
1C. Visitor use ranged from 10 - 54,511 user days per register, with the maximum user days spent at
use is inportant for managers and planners to determine
the Adirondack Loj register. Use also distributed along the trail network, revealing additional user
sustainable management practices4. By understanding
preferences for spatially-explicit experiences (Fig. 8).
how many, when, and where visitors access the
recreation landscape, decisions can be made to
prioritize maintenance, allocate facilities, services and
staff, or identify hotspots of use1. Understanding visitor
use can also identify the broader social, economic,
and political signicance of recreation1.
Visitor-based recreation and tourism support the
multiple service-based and seasonal economies of
Adirondack Park communities5. An estimated 50 million
potential visitors live within 5 hours of the Park6.
These visitors are attracted by multiple recreation
opportunities, including 2,350 miles of DEC trails.
Sampled Adirondack Park registers were found to have
Fig. 8: Use distributed across the trail network
2
an overall compliance rate of 95% . This rate is much
higher than comparable locations (range of 18 - 89%)8. 2A. The majority (70%) of sampled visitors were
Compliance can vary by the setting and type of user4. residents of NYS. The greatest concentrations of
visitors derived from major population centers,
particularly New York City and Long Island (Fig.9).
Communities in the Adirondack Park are generally
lower in population, but are frequent visitors.

Fig. 10: Distance driven (origin to destination) by NYS visitors

Adirondack Loj

2B. Sampled visitors from NYS drove a total of

2,181,112 miles (one-way) to access trail registers.
The usershed of the Adirondack Park can be dened
by the distance a visitor traveled to the trail register
(Fig. 10). The majority (60%) of visitors from the NYS
usershed traveled 100 miles or less (one-way) to a
register, while all one-way travel distances fell within
a range of 0.08 - 371 miles.

REFERENCES
1. Cessford G, Muhar A. 2003. Monitoring options for
visitor numbers in national parks and natural areas.
Journal for Nature Conservation 11:240250.
2. Dawson CP. 2012. Adirondack Forest Preserve
visitor study summary. Syracuse, NY: SUNY College of
Environmental Science and Forestry. Available from:
www.esf.edu/nywild/publications/
3. Dawson CP, Hendee JC. 2009. Wilderness management:
stewardship and protection of resources and values.
4th ed. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing.
4. Hadwen WL, Hill W, Pickering CM. 2007. Icons
under threat: Why monitoring visitors and their
ecological impacts in protected areas matters.
Ecological Management & Restoration 8:177181.
5. Hubacek K, Erickson JD, Duchin F. 2002. Input-output
modeling of protected landscapes: the Adirondack
Park. The Review of Regional Studies 32:207222.
6. LA Group. 2009. Adirondack Park regional assessment
project. Saratoga Springs, NY.
7. Muhar A, Arnberger A, Brandenburg C. 2002. Methods
for visitor monitoring in recreational and protected
areas: An overview. In: Monitoring and Management of
Fig. 9: NYS visitors to the Adirondack Park, distributed by town of origin
Visitor Flows in Recreational and Protected Areas.
8. Roggenbuck JW, Lucas RC. 1987. Wilderness use
and user characteristics. A state-of-knowledge review.
General Technical Report, Intermountain Research
Station, USDA Forest Service:204245.
All photographs and gures attributable to Abigail M. Larkin

Fig. 2: Trail register use across the Adirondack Park

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

TReD Crew: DJ Klaczko, Emma Meteyer, Taylor Miller, Erin Swallow, Daniel Rockefeller
Funding provided by NYS DEC and NSRC
DEC Regional Staff and Foresters
Adirondack Ecological Center
Syracuse University Institutional Review Board