Voluntary geographical information and mountain use

Various communities gather around one or more recreational or sporting activities (e.g. camptocamp.org for mountain activities, visorando.com for hiking activities or openrunner.com for endurance sports). Users post information about their outings and itineraries, usually freely accessible on the Internet, thus contributing, more or less voluntarily, to voluminous databases made up of spatial Big Data.

The Voluntary Geographic Information and 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 common aim of these guidelines is to highlight the value of digital technology in the management of nature sports practices and areas.

The IGV Lab project, led by teacher-researchers Marc Langenbach and Pascal Mao, is directly linked to Robin Lesné’s post-doctorate.