PCLM-D-24-00169

The mountains are calling, but will visitors go? Modeling the effect of weather and wildfire smoke on visitation to Pacific Northwest parks and protected areas using mobile device data

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Minehart,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 25 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Teodoro Georgiadis

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

1. Please note that PLOS Climate has specific guidelines on code sharing for submissions in which author-generated code underpins the findings in the manuscript. In these cases, we expect all author-generated code to be made available without restrictions upon publication of the work. Please review our guidelines at https://journals.plos.org/climate/s/materials-and-software-sharing#loc-sharing-code and ensure that your code is shared in a way that follows best practice and facilitates reproducibility and reuse.

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3. We notice that your supplementary Table S1 and S2 are included in the manuscript file. Please remove them and upload them with the file type 'Supporting Information'. Please ensure that each Supporting Information file has a legend listed in the manuscript after the references list. 

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5. In the online submission form, you indicated that your data is available only on request from a third party. Please note that your Data Availability Statement is currently missing under StreetLight Data Inc, such as an email address or a link to where data requests can be made. Please update your statement with the missing information.

6. Figures 1, S1, S2, S3: please (a) provide a direct link to the base layer of the map (i.e., the country or region border shape) and ensure this is also included in the figure legend; and (b) provide a link to the terms of use / license information for the base layer image or shapefile. We cannot publish proprietary or copyrighted maps (e.g. Google Maps, Mapquest) and the terms of use for your map base layer must be compatible with our CC-BY 4.0 license. 

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Dear authors, both reviewers rise up some concerns regarding your manuscript.

It i my opinion you can revise the paper deeply following the comments and suggestions and you're be able to improve it accordingly.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The article is very interesting, well-structured and complete in terms of statistical analysis. However, it totally lacks a geographical and geomorphological framing, complemented by a thematic map. Above all, it lacks a climatic analysis based on a few meteorological stations representative of the different orographic characteristics present in the study areas. The text should be supplemented by a thematic map and graphs and tables summarising the climatic context.

I would also suggest changing the title to: The mountains call, but will the visitors leave? A new approach to modelling the effects of climate change, weather and smoke from wildfires on visits to parks and protected areas in the North PacificWestern using mobile device data.

Finally, the following simple changes need to be made to the text:

Precipitation predictions in the PNW are influenced by biogeographic factors, resulting in site-specific variations. (lines 80-82) - Precipitation predictions in the PNW are influenced by biogeographic factors, resulting in site-specific variations. please elaborate, explain how this is done

Reviewer #2: This manuscript by Mineheart et al. examines the effects of weekly variability in meteorological variables (air temperature, precipitation), air quality (PM2.5 and AQI), and other predictors on visitation to protected areas (PPAs) in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. The stated goal of the author is to provide insight into the potential impacts of climate change on protected area visitation to help manage visitor access under current climate change. To obtain information on visitor numbers to PPAs, and to overcome the lack of data from most PPAs, this study used information from a database based on mobile device data. This data was provided by a private company (StreetLight Data Inc.) and is unfortunately not publicly available.

Mineheart and co-authors found a relationship between the occurrence of visitors and air temperature, rainfall and proxies for air quality (PM2.5 and AQI). To some extent, these relationships varied with the type of protected area (federal, state, local) and the air quality metrics considered.

The topic is within the scope of PLOS-Climate , original and of interest to the climate change adaptation community. The manuscript is well written, with a satisfactory list of references, but I feel that the methods used suffered from limitations that prevent a solid support of the conclusions.

In line with this comment, I unfortunately think that in its current form the manuscript does not fully meet the PLOS criteria for publication, especially as regards the design of the experiment and the support of the conclusions by the results of the analysis. The following major issues should be considered before publication.

MAJOR ISSUES

1) The authors stated that they were investigating the response of visitors to PPAs to climate change (Abstract). This is incorrect and needs to be corrected. The length of the experimental period (2017 - 2021) does not allow to capture climate change signals. Furthermore, the impact of climate change would also include potential positive or negative feedbacks (on the ecosystem, society…) that are not considered in this work. As rightly stated in the introduction (lines 62 -66), the approach used would allow to study the impact of short-term weather and air quality variability on visitation.

2) The mobile device data provided by StreetLight Data Inc. was critical to this study. I think that more efforts should be put into validating it, and the uncertainties associated with it should be discussed more, along with the implications for the soundness of the conclusions. The authors fairly admitted that it was not possible to validate mobile device data for state and local visitation estimates. Nevertheless, this is a notable caveat that may limit the robustness of the results. I would suggest that the authors could better discuss potential uncertainties in the use of these data, based on the experience of the Creany et al. (2021) study. At the same time, better use should be made of the opportunity to compare data from mobile devices with data from the NPS. The authors showed only temporal time series of data for 8 national parks (Figure S6 and S7). Plotting the mobile device and NPS data separately did not help to understand the actual agreement between the two types of data (I would suggest that a correlation/scatter plot can be made for each individual park). It was not clear how the Spearman correlation was calculated (for the total number of visits or for each individual park?). What about the bias? Does it depend on the season or on the park considered? All these points should be better discussed. Please note that in June 2020-2021 there was a dramatic decrease in IRMA visitation for Olympic NP, which was not observed by StreetLight Data. The reason for this should be discussed/investigated.

3) I have serious concerns about the use of PM2.5 and AQI to model the effects of wildfire smoke. Both indicators (as noted by the authors) are not unambiguous tracers of wildfire emissions and can be influenced by other anthropogenic pollution sources. The title of the manuscript and the section "Effect of wildfire smoke on visitation" should be renamed accordingly. If the authors were to focus on wildfire emissions, they could consider integrating their analysis with satellite data of the burned area (e.g. https://www.globalfiredata.org/), which may help to better distinguish between wildfire and other anthropogenic emissions.

4) More details should be provided about predictor variables. According with EPA (https://www.airnow.gov/aqi/aqi-basics/) AQI is calculated for different pollutants. To which pollutant the used AQI is referring for? As concerning PM2.5 and AQI it would be nice to see a plot or a table describing their typical value over the areas of study.

5) I'm not entirely sure that the effects of PM2.5 and AQI were discussed in the most appropriate way. For example, in the section "Effect of wildfire smoke on visitation", the authors discussed that they "observed a 0.4% increase in weekly visitation ... for a one-unit increase in AQI". According to the EPA, the AQI is divided into six categories, and each category corresponds to a different level of health concern. So I see no reason why an AQI below 100 (which indicates satisfactory air quality) would have an effect on visitation. Perhaps the authors should interpret the effect of the AQI by categorizing it as a function of its six categories. Somehow the same should apply to PM2.5. I would expect visitors to react to PM2.5 above the air quality regulation thresholds.

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PCLM-D-24-00169R1

The mountains are calling, but will visitors go? Modeling the effect of weather and air quality on visitation to Pacific Northwest parks and protected areas using mobile device data

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Minehart,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 15 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Jun Yang

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

The article is significantly enhanced, with the authors emphasizing the importance of selecting appropriate LST (surface temperature) representations in model development, and pointing out that stronger correlations with grouped LSTs indicate the presence of nonlinear relationships and potential threshold effects. There are a number of minor issues that need to be addressed prior to publication, and my specific comments are as follows:

1. In discussing the impacts of climate change on the PNW region, the article mentions changes in temperature and precipitation, but does not mention the potential impacts of these changes on specific species or ecosystem services in PPAs. It is recommended that the authors discuss how these climate changes may affect biodiversity and ecosystem services in PPAs. The following references are suggested. -Investigating the attribution of urban thermal environment changes under background climate and anthropogenic exploitation scenarios, ;Impact of Urban Surfaces on Microclimatic Conditions and Thermal Comfort in Burdur, Türkiye;Impact of Seasonal Global Land Surface Temperature (LST) Change on Gross Primary Production (GPP) in the Early 21st Century;Tracking the Impact of the Land Cover Change on the Spatial-Temporal Distribution of the Thermal Comfort: Insights from the Qinhuai River Basin, China;Multi-Scenario Simulation of Land Use Change and Ecosystem Service Value Based on the Markov–FLUS Model in Ezhou City, China;Optimal allocation of local climate zones based on heat vulnerability perspective

2.When discussing the effects of weather and climate on PPA visitation, the article mentions temperature and precipitation, but does not mention other factors that may affect visitation, such as economic conditions or policy changes. It is recommended that the authors consider and discuss the potential impact of these additional factors.

3. The author describes modeling the effects of weather, air quality, and wildfire smoke on visitation, but does not specify why these particular variables were chosen. It is recommended that the authors explain the basis for the selection of these variables and how they relate to the study objectives.

4.The results analyze visitation effects but do not provide information on how these effects change over time. The authors should do some analysis of the visit volume effects over time to better understand the long-term trends.

5.The discussion mentions the effects of temperature and precipitation on visitation, but does not discuss how these findings compare to the existing literature. It is recommended that the authors compare these findings to existing research and discuss any differences or consistency.

6.I noticed that many of the references are not from the last five years and the authors should update the latest relevant literature to keep the article up to date.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: The authors addressed in a reasonable way the comments in my previous revision. In my opinion the manuscript now meet the PLOS requirements. I would only suggest the authors (if the length limit allows this) to change in the revised abstract "particulate matter 2.5 concentration" with "concentration of particulate matter with diameter lower than 2.5 micron". Line 606 of revised Conclusion: change "Notably, increased visitation to all three types of PPAs corresponded with increased with increasing minimum temperatures.." with "Notably, increased visitation to all three types of corresponded with increasing minimum temperatures...".

Reviewer #3: Thanks to Prof. Yang for inviting me to review this revised article. The article is significantly enhanced, with the authors emphasizing the importance of selecting appropriate LST (surface temperature) representations in model development, and pointing out that stronger correlations with grouped LSTs indicate the presence of nonlinear relationships and potential threshold effects. There are a number of minor issues that need to be addressed prior to publication, and my specific comments are as follows:

1. In discussing the impacts of climate change on the PNW region, the article mentions changes in temperature and precipitation, but does not mention the potential impacts of these changes on specific species or ecosystem services in PPAs. It is recommended that the authors discuss how these climate changes may affect biodiversity and ecosystem services in PPAs. The following references are suggested. -Investigating the attribution of urban thermal environment changes under background climate and anthropogenic exploitation scenarios, ;Impact of Urban Surfaces on Microclimatic Conditions and Thermal Comfort in Burdur, Türkiye;Impact of Seasonal Global Land Surface Temperature (LST) Change on Gross Primary Production (GPP) in the Early 21st Century;Tracking the Impact of the Land Cover Change on the Spatial-Temporal Distribution of the Thermal Comfort: Insights from the Qinhuai River Basin, China;Multi-Scenario Simulation of Land Use Change and Ecosystem Service Value Based on the Markov–FLUS Model in Ezhou City, China;Optimal allocation of local climate zones based on heat vulnerability perspective

2.When discussing the effects of weather and climate on PPA visitation, the article mentions temperature and precipitation, but does not mention other factors that may affect visitation, such as economic conditions or policy changes. It is recommended that the authors consider and discuss the potential impact of these additional factors.

3. The author describes modeling the effects of weather, air quality, and wildfire smoke on visitation, but does not specify why these particular variables were chosen. It is recommended that the authors explain the basis for the selection of these variables and how they relate to the study objectives.

4.The results analyze visitation effects but do not provide information on how these effects change over time. The authors should do some analysis of the visit volume effects over time to better understand the long-term trends.

5.The discussion mentions the effects of temperature and precipitation on visitation, but does not discuss how these findings compare to the existing literature. It is recommended that the authors compare these findings to existing research and discuss any differences or consistency.

6.I noticed that many of the references are not from the last five years and the authors should update the latest relevant literature to keep the article up to date.

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

The mountains are calling, but will visitors go? Modeling the effect of weather and air quality on visitation to Pacific Northwest parks and protected areas using mobile device data

PCLM-D-24-00169R2

Dear Minehart,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'The mountains are calling, but will visitors go? Modeling the effect of weather and air quality on visitation to Pacific Northwest parks and protected areas using mobile device data' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Climate.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow-up email from a member of our team. 

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact climate@plos.org.

Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Climate.

Best regards,

Jun Yang

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Accept

Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: This is my third review of this manuscript. My comments in the last round of review was really minor and I support publication.

Reviewer #3: The author addressed my concerns and recommends publishing this version.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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