A Comparison of Global and Actual Measures of Perceived Crowding of Urban Forest Visitors (Report‪)‬

Introduction Over the last three decades, research on perceived crowding has been a prominent theme of outdoor recreation research. Two types of crowding measures prevail in the literature: The actual measure of perceived crowding combines descriptive information (i.e. observed current use levels) with matching on-site evaluative information (Shelby & Heberlein, 1986; Shelby, Vaske, & Heberlein, 1989), whereas the global measure is an aggregation of crowding perceptions over one larger spatial and/or temporal unit of reporting (Hall & Shelby, 1996; Korca, 1998). Both these survey-based measures of perceived crowding often influence important management decisions such as limiting use (Cole, 2001). Therefore, researchers and managers should be aware of potential differences between the two measures and their causes. So far, no research has investigated the differences between the two measures systematically by comparing these with long-term counting data and analyzing the influences of situational and social factors on the differences between the two measures. Furthermore, most past research has focused on crowding in wilderness or other sparsely used areas, while work in urban settings which are characterized by high shares of repeat users is scarce (Hammitt, 2002; Lee & Graefe, 2003; Westover & Collins, 1987).