Urban outdoor recreation allows people to connect with nature in ways that have historically been difficult; however, urban recreationists must balance recreational use with degradation within these outdoor spaces. My thesis contributes to the growing body of literature on urban outdoor recreation that aims to understand how recreationists protect themselves and improve their environments. I sought to understand the psychological drivers of short- and long-term adaptive behavior, by combining Protection Motivation Theory with dimensions of place attachment. Additionally, I examined how the predictors of adaptive behavior varied for different segments of our recreationist sample. My results showed that perceived risk severity played an important role in predicting short- and long-term behaviors aimed at dealing with poor water quality. Place identity was also a significant predictor of intentions to engage in long-term adaptive behaviors. A comparison between subgroups defined by survey mode revealed different patterns in psychological drivers of behavior.
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