California Marine Protected Area (MPA) Watch Count Survey Data 2012-2020

Marine Protected Area (MPA) Watch is a network of programs that support healthy oceans through community science by collecting human use data in and around our protected areas. This statewide network of programs provide valuable insights for managing, enforcing, and studying California’s MPAs by monitoring over 115 sites along the coast, including areas outside the MPA network for comparison. Volunteers from each partner program (as of 2026, 12 different programs) are trained in standardized data collection methods and given information about each of the sites they will be surveying. Every training consists of a classroom and a field portion that teaches them how to collect unbiased data as they walk beaches to record human activities. The long-term data is compiled in a statewide database and reflects changes in resource use over time. MPA Watch volunteers monitor all human uses in MPAs including a wide variety of activities and can be grouped into four categories based on whether they remove resources and where the activity occurs. Non-consumptive recreational activities do not extract resources (like walking, swimming, surfing, and boating) while consumptive activities do (like fishing and collecting). Volunteers also record whether the activity happens on the beach (onshore) or in the water (offshore). Survey data are collected at various sites throughout California by walking along a predetermined route and keeping track of observed activities on an MPA Watch datasheet. Manuals for volunteer training are included in the archive. This data in this archive is drawn from the MPA Watch database maintained by Green Info Network (interactive map viewer found at: https://mpawatch.org/map/ ), for surveys conducted between 2012 and 2020 (inclusive). The dataset is analyzed in a peer reviewed publication. The code used to analyze the data and visualize the results is included.