Voluntary geographical information and mountain use

Digital uses are now omnipresent in our daily lives, from our mobility and professional tools to our consumer behavior; leisure activities, including sports and nature activities, are no exception.

The emergence and massification of specific tools (GPS or connected watches) or general tools (smartphones, computers) has contributed to the creation of new practices or behaviors, both social and spatial. In the former case, various communities gather around one or more recreational or sporting practices (e.g. camptocamp.org for mountain practices, visorando.com for hiking activities or openrunner.com for endurance sports). In the second, sports enthusiasts now rely on digital mapping tools to generate tracks that are shared on ad hoc platforms, and their relationship with nature and the spaces in which they practice is now mediated by digital technology. In both cases, practitioners contribute, more or less voluntarily, to voluminous databases made up of spatial Big Data, producing geo-digital traces.

The Voluntary Geographic Information and the use of natural and mountain sports areas project is structured along two main lines. On the one hand, the aim is to understand the relationship between users and digital technology in the context of their outdoor sporting activities. What tools do they use? When and how are they used? How do practitioners position themselves in relation to the digital “community”?

On the other hand, we are studying data from nature sports platforms that collect Voluntary Geographic Information (VGI). The aim is to understand what the processing of this massive VGI can tell us about the use of natural leisure areas for nature sports, and about new ways of practising and using mountain areas.

The dual aim of this research project is to understand the logics of appropriation of digital uses, but also the heuristic significance in geography and for mountain socio-ecosystems of the geo-digital traces produced in nature sports.

The IGV Lab project is led by teacher-researchers Marc Langenbach and Pascal Mao and researcher Hugues François (Inrae), with the support of the French Ministry of Sports, the Grenoble Alpes Métropole and the Département de la Drôme. It is also being carried out with the help of Robin Lesné, teacher-researcher at Ulco.