In this Section:

	Background
	Project Components:
	Agriculture
	Park Visitations
	Ranching
	Riparian Corridors
	Ski Recreation
	Water Markets
	Related Links
	Contacts

Research and Products:
Climate, Water Availability, and Southwest Park Visitation

Background and Project Overview

This project addresses two related research questions. First, how does climate variability and water availability affect recreational visits to national and state parks in the Southwest? Second, what are the economic impacts of weather and environment-induced changes in visitation?

Parks in the study area receive more than 35 million visits annually. These visitors spend more than $1.3 billion per year, generating more than 35,000 jobs. Although a small part of the overall Southwest economy, this employment and spending is quite important to local, rural economies. Accurate forecasts of visits to parks, and to tourist sites in general, are of great value to the tourism industry. Tourist services are highly “perishable” goods. For example, a vacant hotel room unused one night cannot be “stored” and used again.

Although national and state park planning documents acknowledge the importance of climate on park visitation patterns, statistical analyses of park visitation have not included climate, water availability, or other environmental variables in their estimation. The project will use multivariate regression analysis to examine the contribution of climate and other environmental changes on park visitation, controlling for other factors (such as spatial patterns of economic and population growth). The second phase of research will use an input-output model to examine how climate and environmental change affect spending, income, and employment in areas around parks.

Methods

We have collected annual cross-section, time series data of visits to state parks in Arizona and New Mexico, and southwestern national parks. For national parks, we also have collected monthly visit data and obtained data on visit forecasts made by the National Park Service Public Use Statistics Office. That agency has also provided us with the data and programs of the forecasting models the Park Service uses to forecast annual visitation to each national park. In addition, economic and geographical data has been collected and used to develop indexes of market potential for each park and of spatial competition between parks. Other control variables include fuel prices and exchange rates.

Changes in visits are mapped into local economic impacts using the MGM2 (Money Generation Model Version 2). The MGM2 model (developed at Michigan State University for the National Park Service) is an input-output model specifically designed to examine impacts of changes in national park visits. The model accounts for multiplier effects of spending. It provides estimates of direct, indirect, and total effects of changes in visitor spending. Outputs include changes in local sales, personal income, value added, and jobs.

Findings

Major findings of this project include:

• For every 1 percent drop in reservoir levels, visits to Lake Mead and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area drop 5 percent. Since reaching peak levels in 1983, reservoir levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell have fallen 5.8 and 2.1 percent, respectively, suggesting substantial drops in tourism associated with falling lake levels.
• For every 10 percent increase in the price of gasoline, visits to parks decline about 2 percent.
• Controlling for other factors, the Cerro Grande fire accounted for a drop of more than 66,000 visits to Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico.
• Visits were positively associated with relative humidity. This finding may result from the fact that the study was confined to the Southwest with very low humidity. Extremely low humidity is associated with desert as opposed to forest or grassland environments.

Here, we provide one example to illustrate the approach to mapping changes in regional water availability to local economic impacts. Between 1999 and 2003, the level of Lake Powell in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area fell 78 feet, and the number of hikers, boaters, anglers, and others who typically visit Glen Canyon fell by an estimated 212,000 visitors (controlling for other factors). We estimate that this drought-induced reduction in visits led to a loss of $14 million in local sales and nearly 300 jobs. The model can be applied to examine positive shocks as well, such as benefits of post-fire restoration efforts.

Econometric methods developed to estimate climate and environmental impacts on visitation are being extended to analyze state park visitation in Arizona and New Mexico. Many of these state parks have lakes providing water-based recreation. We hypothesize that these parks will be sensitive to changes in water levels. The national parks study is based on time series-cross section (TSCS) data from 1980 to 2003. Many climate and environmental variables either do not change over the study period or change very slowly. We are currently re-estimating the model using new, state-of-the-art statistical techniques to address static or slowly-changing variables in TSCS estimation. Visitation data is now available for 2004, so we will test the out-of-sample forecasting ability of the model.

References

Leones, J. and G. Frisvold. 2000. Park Planning Beyond Park Boundaries: A Grand Canyon Case Study. In National Parks and Rural Development: Practice and Policy in the United States. G. Machlis and D. Field (eds.) Washington, DC: Island Press.

Leones, J. and D. Dunn. 1999. Strategies for Monitoring Tourism in Your Community's Economy. Arizona Cooperative Extension, The University of Arizona.

Stynes, D. 2005. Economic Significance of Recreational Uses of National Parks and Public Lands. Social Science Research Review. Volume 5, Number 1, pages 1-36.