Case Study
Carrying capacity: visitors study in Parco Nord Milano, a periurban park
Contact name
Silvia Argentiero
Institution name
Ente Parco Nord Milano
Region & country
Milan, Lombardy, Italy
Summary
To measure the carrying capacity, Parco Nord Milano has started to study the anthropic pressure inside the protected area. The first phase is the data collection through IT and communication tools, aimed to define: the numbers of visitors and the related trends, visitors’ demography, and visitors’ habits (frequency, uses, activities…).
Background of the project
Parco Nord Milano is a peri-urban park that rises in a very high-built environment. In the last few years (especially after the pandemic period), there has been an increase in the flow of visitors. More people visit the park during the weekend, more people who attend the cultural and recreational initiatives of the park, and more people who frequent the meal services. It means also more waste inside the park (litter bins and abandoned waste included).
The need is measure the anthropic pressure to get quantitative data to match visitors’ presence with ecological trends.
Solution and actions taken
Parco Nord Milano has started the collection of data regarding visitors habits. For that, they have engaged with two services :
- Surveillance service to monitor fauna
- Communication office to plan interview and survey of visitors
- Collection and analysis of data from IT tools like:
– eco-counter placed inside the park
– automated car parks - Collection data from interview to visitors and e-mail surveys
- Collection data of waste management inside the park.
Other institutions or parties involved
The Civil Service Volunteers helped with the interview with visitors.
Results
At the moment, we are collecting and analyzing data.
We are also introducing a method to monitor species’ data with a regular report.
Challenges
- Management of visitor’s interviews because it needs time, employees and volunteers.
- Use of IT software to collect specific data and skills to analyse it.
- During the years, in most of cases the monitoring of species inside the park has been carried out by volunteer park guards without coordination or a systematic way. The result is that lots of data can’t be compared.
Lessons learned
Anytime we enter in contact with data it is useful to have a method to collect them.
When collecting data, it’s important to keep in mind that they must be comparable and analyzable.
Contact name
Silvia Argentiero
Institution name
Ente Parco Nord Milano
Website(s)
