An Econometric Model for Predicting Water-Oriented Outdoor Recreation Demand

Excerpts from the report: At present, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is actively engaged in planning and operating programs and projects concerning the development, conservation, and preservation of land and water resources. Many of these programs and projects include recreation use by the public. The recreation policy of USDA is to provide the research, technical, educational, and financial help needed to strengthen existing programs of recreation development. In USDA's river basin and watershed studies, determination of annual visits in recreation days is necessary for economic feasibility analysis of water development projects and in planning water-associated recreation areas. Previous studies made at various recreation sites do not provide the data needed for determining the demand for a metropolitan population for water-oriented outdoor recreation. The purpose here was to assemble demand data by direct sampling of a metropolitan population. The demand for water-oriented outdoor recreation was estimated by using covariance analysis and beta coefficients for each significant socioeconomic factor, both quantitative and qualitative. An econometric model was developed to assess the socioeconomic characteristics influencing the demand for water-oriented outdoor recreation. The objective was to identify the significant factors that affected the demand for water-oriented outdoor recreation facilities in the St. Louis, Mo., area and to estimate their respective influences. Variance and covariance analyses were used to determine the significance of relationships. The sampling procedure is presented in the appendix.