Cooperative Agreement for CESU-affiliated Partner with Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Fort Collins Science Center (FORT) is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner to help summarize, compare, and develop guidance related to federal land and water management agencies’ current methods for collecting information on visitor numbers and other visitor-related data. Improved visitation estimates and understanding of other visitor-related data (e.g., visitor demographics, visitor satisfaction) can help improve planning at an agency level as well as at the recreation site level. Better estimates can also assist external visitor service providers in planning and providing services to visitors of our public lands and waters. While the importance of recreation data is well-established, the methods and quality of visitor-related data collected vary widely from agency to agency. Characterizing visitation on federally managed lands and waters is a significant challenge because many sites have multiple unmonitored access points and are remote in nature. With limited operating budgets, federal agencies must be efficient in designing and implementing data collection efforts. Furthermore, although consistency in data collection methods is desirable, there is enormous diversity in the types of federal lands and waters and recreational opportunities available to visitors, so the most accurate and cost-effective data collection methodology often differs across sites. In 2017, there was a report published comparing visitation estimation methods across federal agencies; however, there is a need to update and expand on this report to further increase transparency and comparability of recreation monitoring programs across agencies (see Leggett et al., 2017 for the full report, available here: https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/uploads/final.task1_.report.2017.04.25.pdf). This opportunity will also involve partnering with the DOI Office of Policy Analysis (PPA) as well as the USGS. This project will expand USGS knowledge of methods used to estimate visitation and other visitor data on federally managed lands and waters, with a goal of providing information that is useful to federal agencies that manage public lands and waters for recreation.