| Project Abstract: |
Understanding the economic significance of national parks and other public lands in the U.S. is critical in managing those lands and in developing collaborative relationships with a full range of stakeholders. The need to understand the relationship between national parks and local, regional and national economies was identified in Usable Knowledge: A Plan for Furthering Social Science and the National Parks (Machlis, 1996) as a critical NPS issue requiring social science. As documented in Usable Knowledge, social science research is needed to:
- understand economic interactions between parks and nearby communities
- assess local, regional, and statewide costs and benefits of parks
- develop, improve and apply methods to evaluate non-recreational, non-consumptive benefits of parks
- evaluate park entry and user fee systems
- predict grains or losses in visitation and evaluate their impact on park management, using regional economic indices and forecasts
Considerable progress has been made in assessing the economic impacts visitation to national parks and other public lands has on surrounding communities (e.g. The NPS Money Generation Model (MGM) and MGM2) and evaluating entry and user fee systems (e.g. evaluation of the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program and the NPS 200 Comprehensive Survey of the American Public and subsequent topic area reports).
A review of the conceptual framework, research methodologies and key findings from the published scientific literature regarding the economic significance of national parks and other public lands is needed by public land managers, their partners and the public.
This project will review the conceptual framework, research methodologies, and key findings from the published scientific literature regarding the economic significance of national parks and other public lands. |
