A group of researchers at Stanford University have launched the Natural Capital Project, aimed at figuring out how tourists are using natural areas for recreation and tourism. Using vacation photosfrom the social media site, Flickr, they are looking for a variety of useful information including where people were going, when they were going and where they were coming from in 1.4 million geo-tagged images on the site. That’s a lot of pics to sift through. Researchers said they already have a grasp on how manmade tourist attractions affect the local economy, but they wanted to see how natural areas like parks and beaches contribute. Usually conductingresearch like this would involve on-site studies, but researchers say that this study shows how social media can revolutionize the way we study people making it faster, less expensive, and better for looking at changes over time and space.