Economic valuation of alternative land uses in a state park
Introduction
Public recreation lands such as state parks are integral to North American society. State parks in the U.S. are protected areas similar to national parks, but typically contain attractions and resources of regional or sub-national significance. The economic significance of nature-based recreation can be demonstrated from the fact that U.S. state parks provided a direct economic contribution of more than $20 billion to surrounding communities in 2010 (Brandeis, 2013). The public benefits of recreational areas for maintaining quality of life have been well-documented in the outdoor recreation literature (e.g. Chiesura, 2004, Poudyal et al., 2009). In addition, a rapidly growing population, coupled with relatively constant supply of public lands in recent years, points to the need for additional public investment to meet the increasing recreational demand (Whiting et al., 2012).
Unfortunately, many state park systems, faced with increasing budget deficits, are losing staff and other resources needed to maintain the current level of visitor services (Whiting et al., 2012, Walls, 2009). Since the most recent recession, several state park systems nationwide have reduced operating hours (Poudyal et al., 2012). California, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, and Massachusetts, for example, have eliminated a significant amount of state funding for parks. Since these parks are state owned and operated, no dedicated federal funding exists to support state parks operations (Shinkle, 2012, Siikamäki, 2011). The costs for constructing and operating state parks in the U.S. have increased dramatically in recent decades. For example, after adjusting for inflation, state park operating expenses have increased by approximately $1 billion in between 1978 and 2007 (Walls, 2009). While these costs are readily quantifiable, public benefits provided by parks are difficult to monetize. As a result, recreational programs seldom receive appropriations priority from lawmakers. Maintaining citizen support for recreation lands will require clearly demonstrating that net benefits outweigh the costs of recreational land use, as well as how the net benefits of recreational use compare with those for alternative uses. The current article attempts to characterize the economic estimates of accrued benefits from land use alternatives within a state park.
Section snippets
State park systems and recreational values
The costs and benefits of recreation and alternative uses of rural land can be evaluated by assessing the streams of social costs and benefits. Stated or revealed preference methods can be used to estimate the net benefits (willingness to pay or consumer surplus (CS)) of recreational use (Freeman, 2003), which provide the total public value when aggregated to the population level. The travel cost method (TCM) is generally used to estimate the economic value of outdoor recreation sites such as a
Study site
Indian Springs State Park (ISSP), a 523-acre public land located in rural Georgia, was selected as the study area for a number of reasons. First, ISSP is a medium size park that is representative of most state parks in the U.S. in terms of both land area and recreation visitation. Second, like most state parks, ISSP is located in a relatively rural setting where land values are not influenced substantially by development potential (e.g., residential, commercial). Site Index (a measure of land
Recreation demand modelling
The on-site survey of visitors included 302 completed surveys, a cooperation rate of 98%. The demographic characteristics of visitors (e.g., ethnicity, gender, group size) were generally similar to the characteristics of Georgia park visitors (Larson et al., 2014). The results from the travel cost model are reported in Table 2. As the likelihood ratio test demonstrates, the value of the over-dispersion parameter (α) was significantly different from zero, indicating that the negative binomial
Discussion and conclusion
Results from the analysis, including the effect of travel cost on demand, were consistent with the existing travel cost literature on outdoor recreation demand (e.g. Siderelis and Moore, 1995, Betz et al., 2003, Bowker et al., 2007). The insignificance of income was the exception, but several past studies resulted in similar findings (Englin and Shonkwiler, 1995, Bowker and Leeworthy, 1998, Kerkvliet et al., 2002, Ovaskainen et al., 2012).
Although we expected the frequency of visits to other
Acknowledgement
Authors would like to thank the University of Georgia, Vice President of Research and Office of Institutional Diversity and Georgia Department of Natural Resources, State Parks and Historic Sites Division for funding and logistic support during data collection.
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