Study on the potential and challenges of outdoor apps for nature conservation

"We studied the potential and challenges of outdoor platforms for nature conservation and identified obstacles and opportunities to overcome them," says Arne Schwietering, research assistant in the "Digital Ranger" project at the Chair of Sports Ecology of Prof. Dr. Manuel Steinbauer at the University of Bayreuth. Together with Dr. Veronika Mitterwallner and Dr. Volker Audorff, they were able to get the two largest outdoor platforms in Germany, Komoot and Outdooractive, sports clubs (DAV, DIMB), nature conservation associations, state actors and forest owners on one table. The study therefore considers the common interests of all key stakeholders involved with nature conservation and outdoor apps.

Outdoor sports activities are an integral part of leisure behavior in Germany which has been accompanied by a comprehensive digitalization of tour planning in recent years. This is reinforced by the trend towards the individualization of leisure activities and the expansion of activities, thus posing specific challenges for nature conservation, agriculture and forestry: Protected areas and the rules that apply there are only partially taken into account in digital tour planning, which is usually due to the lack of relevant information in the OpenStreetMap (OSM) map base. In addition, the extent to which protected areas are integrated differs between the outdoor platforms. Furthermore, conservation regulations are often formulated in such a complicated way that they are not suitable for integration into apps.

The digital possibilities are actually limitless: outdoor platforms enable their users to access information covering many areas at any time. This means hourly weather conditions and warnings, daily status updates for meadow breeders, for example, geographical designation of protected areas - all of this could be incorporated into the apps that recreation seekers use to put together a tour. "But it doesn't yet," says Arne Schwietering.

The solution: activity management. Targeted cooperation between nature conservation representatives and outdoor platforms could significantly improve the information situation for platform users through the uniform use of data relevant to nature conservation. This concerns data on legally binding regulations in protected areas and on endangered and vulnerable animal and plant species resulting from legally binding species protection requirements. The multilateral communication made possible by digital media offers the opportunity to involve recreationists in nature conservation. Or to redirect them through the targeted promotion of alternative offers. Examples of this include digitally supported themed hiking trails, augmented reality applications and citizen science projects. In terms of nature and species conservation, the positive opportunities offered by outdoor apps are likely to outweigh the challenges posed by these applications in the medium term.

The Albrecht von Dewitz Foundation, which is co-financing the project, is delighted to support the University of Bayreuth and its "Digital Ranger" project. "We aim to actively promote nature and species conservation in the context of using outdoor platforms. This study represents a crucial assessment and provides concrete solutions, serving as a basis for a more sustainable approach to nature", says Antje von Dewitz, Chairwoman of the Foundation Board.

Background: 

The Federal Forest Act is currently being revised. There are plans to regulate "digital trail building", i.e. the creation of digital trails based on maps such as OpenStreetMap. Like Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap is community-based and is probably the largest and most widely used database for digital maps. This data is also used in outdoor platforms such as Komoot, Strava and Outdooractive as a sometimes even sole source for creating maps and as a crucial basis for tour suggestions and tour planning. This has drawn attention to outdoor apps.

About the project:

 Digital Ranger is a practice-oriented research project whose goal it is toinvestigate and realize the integration of nature conservation in digital media. The focus is on outdoor platforms, recreational users and nature conservation concerns inside and outside protected areas. The project partners are the Sports Ecology working group at the University of Bayreuth, Digitize the Planet e.V., Outdooractive, the Fichtelgebirge Nature Park and Nagelfluhkette Nature Park and Treuchtlingen University of Applied Sciences. The project is funded by the Albrecht von Dewitz Foundation, the Upper Franconia Foundation and the Rainer Markgraf Foundation. http://www.digital-ranger.uni-bayreuth.de