Digital Geography Lab blog

The Canary Islands are a biodiversity, geodiversity and tourism hotspot, boasting one of the most visited national parks in Europe (Teide in Tenerife). Tourism is the backbone of the local economy, but the growing masses of visitors put an unsustainable strain on the islands’ beautiful nature.

The islands are also acutely impacted by climate change and other megatrends including aging of population in Europe or digitalisation changing work life. On top of the traditional tourists, the islands are now receiving masses of long-term visitors seeking warm wintering grounds on the islands.  

These factors make the Canary Islands an interesting study area for the MOBICON project, where we study changes in nature visitation and their impacts on biodiversity conservation as well as the applicability of mobile big data sources for extracting visitor information.  

We (team Mobicon: Aina, Matti, Tatu and Tuuli) visited the islands of Gran Canaria and Tenerife in March 2024 for establishing collaboration with local universities and to collect research data through stakeholder discussions. Some highlights of the trip below.

Continue reading “Big data, big changes: Project MOBICON in the Canary Islands for a workshop and presentations”

The importance of natural areas for recreation and conservation alike is critical, yet we often don’t know how many people visit them and why. Such information is necessary for the management and development of natural areas, which is why research by our lab and others have considered mobile big data sources (think data from mobile phones, social media etc.) as a way to monitor outdoor recreation. Yet, translating scientific research into actionable information for management is not straightforward – is it even wise? What kind of information do managers of natural areas need? What sort of changes do they managers see, how do these affect their information needs, and what sort of larger trends drive these changes? 

Researchers in project Mobicon called together experts from Finnish nature organizations to reflect on these questions in September 2023. The aim of the workshop was to collect expert opinions related to the changes in the recreational use of nature, the monitoring needs related to the changing visitations, and to discuss the possibilities of various new data sources to meet managerial information needs. 

This workshop was the first of a series repeated in March 2024 in the Canary Islands. We have now released a report on the outcome of the Helsinki workshop. Check it out! 

In English: https://doi.org/10.31885/2024.030501 

Suomeksi: https://doi.org/10.31885/2024.030502 

If you wish to cite the reports, you may use:

Toivonen, T., Brias Guinart, A., Eklund, J., Hästbacka, M., Leppämäki, T. and Torkko, J. (2023). Potential of mobile big data for visitor monitoring: Report of the MOBICON workshop held in Helsinki 28.9.2023. Helsinki: Digital Geography Lab, University of Helsinki. doi:10.31885/2024.030501

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The Digital Geography Lab is an interdisciplinary research team focusing on spatial Big Data analytics for fair and sustainable societies at the University of Helsinki.

Research groups are the basic unit of research in many research fields in universities. At the University of Helsinki alone we have hundreds of research groups. Still, almost all groups invent their everyday practices from scratch.

A couple of weeks ago, we at Digital Geographic Lab organized again our yearly development day. There, we decided to share some of our practices publicly in the form of a lab handbook. So here comes:

Digital Geography Lab Handbook 2024 (note: updated 20.2.2024)

The practices have been developed over the years through suggestions of many past and present lab members.

We hope that sharing them will be useful to some other research labs/groups, or those just starting their own group ❤️

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The Digital Geography Lab is an interdisciplinary research team focusing on spatial Big Data analytics for fair and sustainable societies at the University of Helsinki.

Authors: Tuuli Toivonen, Christoph Fink, Elias Willberg

For the past 2.5 years, the Digital Geography Lab has participated in the international H2020 consortium URBANAGE that is coming to its end now in January 2024.

Europe’s rapidly aging population and the rise of disruptive technology in urban planning were at the pivot point of the URBANAGE project. Urban planning needs to better take into account the needs of a growing older population, and advances in technologies make more evidence-based urban policy come into reach. The project focused on how Digital Urban Twin technology could be used to assist planning for age-friendly cities. It was carried out at three pilot sites across the European Union, namely the cities of Helsinki and Santander, and the region of Flanders. The main partners in Helsinki were Forum Virium Helsinki and the University of Helsinki. Postdoctoral researcher Christoph Fink has been our key researcher in the project, while Elias Willberg worked in more targeted tasks.

The project informed its research in a co-creation effort that aimed to learn from lived experience. Most relevantly, we inquired what factors are important for improving the accessibility and mobility of older adults in future cities. The project then developed a dashboard to collect spatial information on the age friendliness and to expand and advance the toolbox planners need for improved solutions, for example with accessibility or green comfort in mind.

The Digital Geography Lab contributed to the project in a variety of ways. Our biggest contribution was to explore the mobility environment of older people at the scale of urban areas. We employed both a conceptual and an analytical perspective, and critically examined the role of technology in doing so.

In one of our studies, we empirically examined the impact of winter conditions on older adults’ mobility landscapes. We produced valuable information for age-sensitive routing, and challenged the simplicity of the “15-minute city” concept, suggesting to better consider the varying realities of urban residents (Willberg, Fink & Toivonen, 2023).

Continue reading “URBANAGE project closing”

We are happy to introduce Ashish Shete! 🙂 Ashish joined the Digital Geography Lab in December 2023 to work as a Technical Assistant in the GREENTRAVEL project. Check out our mini-interview with Ashish to learn more about him and his research.

Who are you, and what is your role at the University?

I am Ashish Shete, and I have recently relocated to Finland from Pune, India. Since mid-December 2023, I work as a Technical Assistant at the Digital Geography Lab, University of Helsinki. My current role involves contributing to the GREENTRAVEL project, which focuses on studying urban travel environments’ greenery from diverse perspectives. Specifically, my task is to design and develop the VR setup for this project. This setup will help creating controlled environment to analyse effects of green travel environments on people and the relevance of various greenery features, also considering the seasonal variations.

In what kind of positions have you worked prior to joining University?

I have over a decade of experience in Visualization and CAD software development. My expertise spans software development in domains such as shipping, oil-field exploration, and BIM. I have crafted immersive experiences like 3D visualizations, walk-throughs and animation while working in collaborative settings within both multinational corporations and startup environments. I hold a master’s degree in automotive engineering. Continue reading “Meet Ashish Shete, a new Technical Assistant in the GREENTRAVEL project”