Building a Comprehensive Count Program in Your Park or on Your Trails

Accessing and exploring parks, trails, and natural areas has grown rapidly in popularity in recent years, due at least in part by the demand for space for exercise, socializing, and staying happy and healthy in a world still beholden to pandemic considerations. While this trend is cause for celebration for park and trail managers, the influx of so many users has made clear the value and challenges in managing trails and parks to ensure maintenance, the quality of experience, and the protection of flora and fauna, among other priorities. In this webinar, we will examine real-world count data that illustrates this increased use of trails and parks and discuss the logistics and best practices behind building robust count programs at multiple scales. This will include an overview of various counting technologies, as well as how to best deploy automatic counters to collect high-quality, useful data. Finally, we will explore how trail management organizations can use the count data itself to improve maintenance, advocacy, and visitor experience.

Learning Objectives:

• An overview of counting options from manual counts to automatic counters
• Best practices and lessons learned in the counting field
• Exchange of ideas on applications of count data