University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Community and Regional Planning Program: Community and Regional Planning Program Student Projects and Theses Spring 5-2015 Evaluation of Cultural Ecosystem Aesthetic Value of the State of Nebraska by Mapping Geo-Tagged Photographs from Social Media Data of Panoramio and Flickr Richard Wagner Figueroa Alfaro University of Nebraska – Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/arch_crp_theses Part of the Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons Figueroa Alfaro, Richard Wagner, "Evaluation of Cultural Ecosystem Aesthetic Value of the State of Nebraska by Mapping Geo-Tagged Photographs from Social Media Data of Panoramio and Flickr" (2015). Community and Regional Planning Program: Student Projects and Theses. 34. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/arch_crp_theses/34 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Community and Regional Planning Program at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Community and Regional Planning Program: Student Projects and Theses by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. EVALUATION OF CULTURAL ECOSYSTEM AESTHETIC VALUE OF THE STATE OF NEBRASKA BY MAPPING GEO-TAGGED PHOTOGRAPHS FROM SOCIAL MEDIA DATA OF PANORAMIO AND FLICKR by Richard Figueroa A THESIS Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Master of Community and Regional Planning Major: Community and Regional Planning Under the Supervision of Professor Zhenghong Tang Lincoln, Nebraska May, 2015 EVALUATION OF CULTURAL ECOSYSTEM AESTHETIC VALUE OF THE STATE OF NEBRASKA BY MAPPING GEO-TAGGED PHOTOGRAPHS FROM SOCIAL MEDIA DATA OF PANORAMIO AND FLICKR Richard Figueroa, M.C.R.P. University of Nebraska, 2015 Advisor: Zhenghong Tang Ecosystems and human beings are inter-related in the world. People receive some benefits from ecosystems named Ecosystem Services such as provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural services. Aesthetic value from cultural services is the interaction of people with the environment related to natural beauty based on human perceptions and judgments. Over the time, traditional approaches for evaluating aesthetic value have been developed based on touristic attractiveness, natural beauty, or wide biodiversity. The main goal of this thesis was to evaluate the aesthetic value in Nebraska through a new approach by using social media data from Panoramio and Flickr since these kinds of virtual networks became a huge source of information available for multiple uses such as medical, social, touristic, environmental, and so on. We analyzed the locations of clusters of pictures with the location of potential areas of aesthetic value in Nebraska, discovered new areas with aesthetic value, and compared to the population. We used the Application Programming Interface (API) from Panoramio and Flickr to obtain the latitude and longitude of the photographs taken and analyzed using ArcGIS Spatial Statistical tools. Then, we overlapped them with areas of potential aesthetic value in Nebraska: natural landmarks, biologically unique landscapes, state parks, national parks, national forests and grasslands, national wildlife refuges, and surface water bodies (major streams and lakes). Also, we compared them to population. Finally, we identified hot spots and cold spots of clusters, in particular, in the north, west, and southeast parts of Nebraska; areas of study have a direct relationship with the hotspots; there are three new areas with aesthetic values discovered in Nebraska; and there was not a strong statistically significant relationship between the clusters and population at county, census track, block group, and block levels. Also, we stated some implications to Planning, research limitations, and future research areas. i DEDICATION I would like to dedicate this thesis to my family in Cajamarca, Peru. A special feeling of gratitude to my loving parents Felipe and Florecena whose support and model made me the man who I am. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to say thank you to my committee members who were very generous with their expertise and precious time to help me in the development of this work. A special thanks to Dr. Zhenghong Tang, my committee chairman for his endless hours of advising, reading, encouraging, and most of all support throughout the entire process. Thank you to Dr. Yunwoo Nam and Dr. Mark Burbach for agreeing to serve on my committee. I wish to thank the Community and Regional Planning Program and staff for allowing me to develop this paper as an important contribution for research and academic purposes in my planning career. Thank you to Professor Gordon Scholz who was always willing to help me for this study. Finally I would like to thank all of the people who supported me to develop this thesis from the beginning to the end. Thank to Trisha Schlake, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission GIS Applications Developer who provided GIS data, and thanks to my colleague Yanfu Zhou who taught me about API functions. iii Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................... Dedication .................................................................................................................i Acknowledgements ................................................................................................. ii Table of Contents ................................................................................................... iii Lists of Tables .......................................................................................................... v List of Figures .........................................................................................................vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... 01 A. Overview ........................................................................................................ 01 B. Research Questions ........................................................................................ 04 C. Justification .................................................................................................... 04 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................... 06 A. Environmental Context ................................................................................... 06 a) Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.......................................................... 06 b) Ecosystem Services ................................................................................... 06 c) Cultural Services ....................................................................................... 07 d) Aesthetic Services ..................................................................................... 08 e) Assessment of Aesthetic Services ............................................................. 09 B. Social Media Data ........................................................................................... 11 a) Application Programming Interface (API) ............................................... 13 b) Panoramio ................................................................................................. 14 c) Flickr ......................................................................................................... 15 C. Nebraska, Areas of Aesthetic Value ............................................................... 16 a) Natural Landmarks .................................................................................... 17 b) Biologically Unique Landscapes .............................................................. 19 c) State Parks ................................................................................................. 20 d) National Parks/Lands ................................................................................ 21 e) National Forests and Grasslands ............................................................... 22 f) National Wildlife Refuges ........................................................................ 23 g) Surface Water ............................................................................................ 24 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND METHOD ............................... 26 A. Objectives ....................................................................................................... 26 B. Methodology .................................................................................................. 26 a) Panoramio API .......................................................................................... 26 b) Flickr API .................................................................................................. 27 C. Data Collection ............................................................................................... 28 D. Data Analysis ................................................................................................. 32 iv CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS ..................................................................................... 33 A. Social Media Database ................................................................................. 33 B. Area of Study ...............................................................................................