Perceptions of recreational trail impacts on an urban forest walk: A controlled field experiment

•Recreational impacts can reduce the quality of visitor walking experience.•The more impacts respondents noticed, the more negative their experience was.•Age, education and origin affected perceptions of the extent of recreational impacts.•Muddy trail sections and parallel informal trails were significantly over-perceived. Urban forest managers regularly deal with recreational trail impacts and dissatisfied trail users. This exploratory study examined the extent to which various objectively measured recreational impacts on urban forest trails are perceived by trail users, and how perceptions affect the quality of their experience. The influence of age and education was also examined. An integrated approach combining biophysical and social science aspects was used with a convenience sample of university students and retirees (N=82). A 1700m long study trail through a natural forest within an urban landscape park was pre-assessed before the walk for visual impacts such as erosion, litter, exposed roots, vandalism, muddy trail sections, divergent and parallel trails, excessive trail width, domestic animal waste and sporting activity impacts. After the participants had walked the trail individually, they completed a questionnaire which asked which trail impacts they had noticed, to what extent they had noticed them, and whether and to what degree that had influenced their recreation experience. The results indicated that some impacts such as muddy trail sections and informal trails were perceived to a much greater extent than assessors had objectively measured them.