Skip to main content Skip to footer unit links
  • UW Home
  • Directories
  • Maps
  • Intranet
  • News
  • Make a Gift

College of the Environment UW College of the Environment Logo

  • About
    • Dean’s Office
      • Dean Maya Tolstoy
      • Executive Committee
      • Dean’s Office Staff
    • Strategic Planning
      • Autumn 2022 Town Hall and draft framework
      • Timeline and process
    • Quick Facts
    • Core Units
    • Our Facilities
      • Reimagining Anderson Hall
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
      • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Task Force
      • Bias Incident, Non-Discrimination and Sexual Harassment Resources
      • Climate Justice and Sustainability
      • Knowledge, Community & Action
      • Tools and Additional Resources
      • Data and Reports
    • Awards and Honors
    • Jobs
      • UW College of the Environment Science Communications Fellowship
    • Contact Us
  • Research
    • Major Initiatives
      • Ocean Health
      • EarthLab
      • Climate Change
      • Polar Regions
      • Freshwater
      • Natural Hazards
      • Conservation
    • Research Units
    • Field Stations
    • Fleet
    • Postdoctoral Scholars
      • Meet Our Postdocs
      • Postdoc Career Resources
      • Postdoc Discipline and Demographic Data
      • Postdoc Resources
      • Open Postdoc Positions
    • Science Communication and Outreach
      • Amplify
      • Resources
      • Training, Fellowships, Coaching and Courses
    • Get Involved
  • Students
    • Meet Our Students
      • Undergraduate Ambassadors
      • Graduate Student Profiles
      • Student Advisory Council
    • Future Undergrads
      • Connect
      • Prepare
      • Visit
      • Apply
    • Future Graduate Students
      • Prepare and Apply
      • Graduate Student Discipline and Demographic Data
    • Current Students
      • Scholarships and Funding
      • Student Support
      • Diversity Resources
      • Graduate Student Professional Development
      • Identity, Belonging and Inquiry in Science (IBIS) Program
      • Get Involved
      • Research University Alliance (RUA)
    • Degrees and Courses
      • Undergraduate Degrees and Minors
      • Undergraduate Courses
      • Graduate Degrees
      • Science Communication Courses
    • Environmental Jobs
      • For Employers
      • UW Environmental Career Fair
      • Tips for Job/Internship Seekers
  • Alumni and Community
    • Giving to the College
      • Give Now
      • How to Give
      • Support a Cause
      • The President’s Circle
      • Our Advancement Team
    • Calendar and Events
      • The Doug Walker Lecture Series
    • Visit and Explore
    • Alumni
    • Volunteer
    • Headlines Newsletter
  • Faculty
  • News
Share
Apr 21, 2015
  • Social Sciences
  • Sustainability
  • Ecology
  • Freshwater

Clean lakes draw more people, and more money, Flickr photos show

One of the joys of going on vacation in today’s world is sharing our photos on social media. Whether we post them ourselves, or enjoy photos shared from someone else’s sun-soaked, lakeside vacation, now these pictures are being used for more than evoking slight pangs of envy. Scientists from the University of Washington and other institutions are using geotagged images to better understand why people choose to visit one body of water over another, how water health might play into that decision, and how much individuals might be willing to pay to keep their lakes clean.

Big Marine Lake, MN
m01229/Flickr
People–and dogs–enjoy one of Minnesota’s many lakes. Images like these, shared on Flickr, provide evidence that water quality makes a difference when people decide where to spend their vacations.

Natural Capital Project’s Spencer Wood, a research scientist working out of the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS), is part of the group of researchers who analyzed 41,000 geotagged, publicly accessible photos uploaded to Flickr to see which lakes in Minnesota and Iowa are most frequented by visitors, and compared water-quality data from those lakes to explore how lake clarity and lake popularity are related.

By looking at tens of thousands of unique, anonymized photo records, the researchers were able to determine how many people spent time vacationing at lakes in these states between 2005 and 2012. They also assessed where lake-goers were coming from and the distances each photographer traveled to enjoy their chosen lake. During that eight-year period, people shared pictures from 1,149 lakes, traveling from most of the US states and 36 countries. With this giant and diverse data set, scientists were able to tease out the effect that clearer lakes have on visitation rates and travel distances. They found that people are significantly more likely to spend their vacation time at lakes with clearer water, and willing to drive almost an hour longer, incurring costs of about $22, for every 1-meter increase in water clarity.

This study provides another example of the opportunities social media, citizen participation, and big data present in studying environmental patterns and problems. It also highlights the importance of water quality, not just for the ecosystems of the lakes, rivers and streams, but also for us humans who enjoy them.

There are over 40,000 bodies of fresh water listed as endangered by the US Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act. Enforcing the cleanup and maintenance of these lakes, rivers, and streams is costly, and leads some to wonder if it’s worth it. Until now, no one had quantified the recreational benefits of surface water quality in lakes. This new research suggests that, in fact, clean water has a measurable and substantial economic value for recreational purposes. Knowing the return on investment, the value of clean water to our health and economy, can help us better manage those resources.

You can read the paper, titled “Recreational demand for clean water: evidence from geotagged photographs by visitors to lakes”, in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

– Written by: Jen Davison

  • Headlines Newsletter
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Newsletter
  • Feed
College of the Environment Logo

College of the Environment

1492 NE Boat St., Seattle, WA 98105

coenv@uw.edu

  • Intranet
  • News

Staff Login

  • Aquatic and Fishery Sciences
  • Atmospheric Sciences
  • Center for Quantitative Science
  • Climate Impacts Group
  • Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, & Ecosystem Studies
  • EarthLab
  • Earth and Space Sciences
  • Environmental and Forest Sciences
  • Friday Harbor Laboratories
  • Marine and Environmental Affairs
  • Marine Biology
  • Oceanography
  • Program on Climate Change
  • Program on the Environment
  • Quaternary Research Center
  • UW Botanic Gardens
  • Washington Sea Grant
University of Washington
University of Washington - Be Boundless for Washington for the WorldBe Boundless - For Washington For the World

© 2023 University of Washington

  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • GDPR
  • Link Policy