Are we visiting greenspace differently during the COVID-19 pandemic?

The Urban Big Data Centre has been using mobile phone data to look at how people have been interacting with greenspaces during the Covid 19 pandemic.

The Urban Big Data Centre recently engaged with the greenspace scotland Park Managers Forum to discuss this very issue highlighting the important role that mobile phone data can provide when making park management decisions.

Mobile phone data presents an opportunity to address these points by providing near real-time behavioural data on how people use natural spaces and which spaces are in high or low demand. For example, it is possible to study when and how people access and leave greenspaces, how long they spend there, where they come from and how these dynamics have changed over time.

Understanding this can allow managers to make adaptations to greenspaces such as adding benches and playing facilities in a park, improving accessibility, and removing unnecessary facilities.

As an example of this mobile phone data was used within a selection of Glasgow’s open spaces, extracting over 769,000 impressions across two years. The sites with the most impressions were Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow Green and Pollock Country Park  and this data provides information on how the spaces were used through 2019 and 202.

To find out more and delve in to the detail of the study visit the Are we visiting greenspace differently during the COVID-19 pandemic? blog