Method Factsheet - Photoseries Analysis

Revealed preference for Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) and spatially-explicit data on location for nearby CES provision can be obtained from popular social networks. Photoseries databases can be acquired from photo-sharing websites such as Flickr, Panoramio and Instagram. The analysis of community-contributed photos can be used as a complementary technique to interviews, questionnaires or focus groups to assess preferences for CES, assuming that visitors are attracted by the location where they take photographs. The method allows those CES to be identified which are perceived as the most important by the people who take the photographs and to map their distribution.

Methods

Photo-series analysis
Stakeholder involvement
Valuation: non-monetary

Topics

Ecosystem services
Heritage (cultural and natural)

Constraints

Socio- and psycho-cultural aspects are crucial in order to define different values from the point of view of individuals and society. This method doesn't allow information related to the user characteristics to be directly obtained which could reveal significant correlations with the photo content
People's attitude to taking photographs change with the different recreation activities (Wood et al., 2013). Certain activities are therefore less well represented, for example rock climbers may take less photos than people having a picnic
The photo-sharing community may not be representative of specific social groups: the represented population will then be dependent on the level of access to information technology, education and age, and the user's ability/willingness to correctly geotag the photos.

Product requirements

Requires public photos which can be downloaded from social networks to investigate socio-biophysical features associated with CES supply.
Different professionals to work together on the photo content in order to agree on their interpretation. Other methods such as interviews, questionnaires or focus groups should be integrated in order to take into account socio and psycho-cultural aspects which are related to values.

Advantages

Photoseries analysis represents a pragmatic way of gathering space-and time-referenced data on observed people's preferences related to CES which are difficult to obtain in a cost-effective (fast and simple) way through traditional data gathering techniques (e.g. social surveys)
It allows further understanding on the spatial distribution of CES in areas with low baseline information (Martinez-Pastur et al., in press). It is spatially explicit
It permits the identification of socio-biophysical features of landscapes (focal points) that are associated with the provision of CES and with the spatial trade-offs and synergies among CES (Martinez-Pastur et al., in press).

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