In addition to the solitude that can come with remote locations, it is important that people in the watershed have the opportunity to experience nature near their homes. To assess recreational access, we measured the proportion of people with an outdoor recreational opportunity within 3 miles of their home.
How is it scored?
The indicator began by combining the U.S.D.A. Forest Service’s Recreation Opportunities, Arizona State Parks and Trails Statewide Trailhead, and Arizona State Parks and Trails Park Locations maps and clipping this map to the Watershed’s boundaries. Additional parks that offered outdoor recreation not included in these datasets, primarily those operated by municipalities, were then manually identified by the Report Card team in Google Earth Pro and added to the aforementioned map. Using this single recreational oppurtunties map we calculated the proportion of individuals with recreational oppurtunities within 3 miles of their home.