In the forest within the landscape park Tivoli, Rožnik and Šišenski hrib, we analysed the factors that affect the safety and quality of recreational activities in the urban forest. Using a combination of remote sensing data we sought to map individual trees belonging to the five most common tree species (spruce, Scots pine, beech, combined data for sessile oak and pedunculate oak, sweet chestnut ) and obtain reliable and detailed data on the stages of decay of forest trees which could pose a safety threat to visitors. The average classification accuracy of the five tree species was 58 %. However, the method did not yield a sufficiently high precision of automatic segmentation of tree crowns that would a llow identification of individual trees along the forest paths. Using an innovative integrated approach of physical field measurements and a survey, we found that hikers in urban forests can perceive environmental impacts of recreational activities in the forest and that these impacts can impair the quality of their experience. The more impacts they perceive, the worse their experience can be. In this study, the age, education and origin of the participants (whether from urban or rural environments) affected mainly the scope of perception of the environmental impacts of recreational activities , but not the experience of the study participants. For example, they detected signifi cantly more litter and mud as there actually was to be found along the way. By analysing all types and categories of the paths (roads, official trails and informal trails) we sought to determine whether the existing network can meet the demand for adequate logistic infras tructure. We found that the extensive network of informal trails in the northern and eastern area of the park indicates a significantly greater need for trails compared to the official infrastructure available to visitors. Because of the use of additional trails, the potential surface area of quiet zones (i.e. areas with no formal trails) decreases by approximately 80 %, and the average zone sized ecreases by about 90 %, which may affect the species diversity of this forest.
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