Mostly by webcam! So far we have tracked how many people utilize Vacarest Nature Park for fitness and recreation during the Covid-19 pandemic through a webcam on our collaborator's office balcony. Park attendance has been dependent on weather conditions but overall attendance is consistent with data collected in pervious years by the Vacaresti Nature Park Association.
Image Source: Vacaresti Nature Park's Livestream Camera
When we initially decided to work on this project, we were supposed to be in Romania from mid-March until early May. Unfortunately, world events got in the way of our plans. Like many other teams, schools, and businesses we were faced with the challenge of having to completely re-design our project. Our original proposal called for park observations:
"The park will be observed on different days to determine the overall attendance and uses as well as overall condition. [and]... The park will be split into sections, the use of each section will be determined by observation and the uses will be recorded."
This posed a problem... how exactly do you do visual inspections and usage observations when you are 4,750 miles away? With the help of our collaborator we looked into alternatives. After discussing removing observations from our methods our collaborator provided us with a live-stream of the North-West corner of the park. This live stream is nothing like being in Romania, but a view of even a small corner of the park is better than nothing. At the time of writing, our team has logged 114 half hour observations between 6 AM and 7 PM Eastern European Time over a one-week period. This data is helping us understand when people use the park and what areas see the highest use.
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