For many people the digital world is an important way to learn about and experience the Watershed. To capture this type of engagement we compared the number of times water-related topics were searched for on Google using data from Google Trends.
How is it scored?
The digital engagement indicator is based on results from Google Trends queries. Search terms were identified from each region based on (mostly aquatic) place names. The last two years of data were scored using the top three performing search terms for each region. The mean score for the top three search terms for each region was calculated. After a set of representative search terms had been identified for each region, zones were compared to one another using a statistical method called a z-score.