ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF
RECREATION: WEBSITE USER GUIDE
The Estimated Economic Contribution of
Recreation on National Forests and Grasslands
Forest Service
Ecosystem Management Coordination
Caring for the land and serving the people
February 2015
ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF RECREATION: WEBSITE USER GUIDE
ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF
RECREATION: WEBSITE USER GUIDE
The Estimated Economic Contribution of
Recreation on National Forests and Grasslands
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND CONTACTS ............................................... 2
THE ECONOMICS HOME PAGE............................................................................................ 3
Economic measures used..........................................................................................................................4
Caveats ......................................................................................................................................................4
RECREATION SITE ................................................................................................................ 5
Single Forest Report .................................................................................................................................7
Reports by FS Region ..............................................................................................................................8
Multiple Forest and Grasslands or Regions Reports ..........................................................................9
PRINTING REPORTS........................................................................................................... 11
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ..................................................................................... 12
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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF RECREATION: WEBSITE USER GUIDE
INTRODUCTION, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND CONTACTS
The Economic Contribution of Recreation on National Forests and Grasslands Website (hereafter “the
Website”) is built on decades of work by Forest Service economists. The FS economist community perfected the
numerous protocols, tools and methods which underlie the analysis used to generate the Website estimates.
Note: This User Guide is designed only to help you navigate the site. For assistance with data interpretation,
please contact a WO or Regional Economist or Social Scientist:
List of Washington Office and Forest Service Regional Office Contacts
STAFF
NAME
EMAIL
WO, EMC
Doug Smith
dhsmith@fs.fed.us
WO, EMC
Susan Winter
swinter@fs.fed.us
WO, EMC
Kawa Ng
kng@fs.fed.us
WO, EMC
Floyd Deloney
fdeloney@fs.fed.us
WO, EMC
Karen Liu
kliu@fs.fed.us
Region 1
Krista Gebert
kgebert@fs.fed.us
Region 2
Julie Schaefers
jschaefers@fs.fed.us
Region 3
Matt Turner
mturner@fs.fed.us
Region 4
Chris Miller
chrismiller@fs.fed.us
Region 5
Mark Metcalfe
mmetcalfe@fs.fed.us
Region 6
Lis Grinspoon
egrinspoon@fs.fed.us
Region 8
Paul Arndt
parndt@fs.fed.us
Region 9
Tony Erba
aerba@fs.fed.us
Region 10
Pat Reed
preed01@fs.fed.us
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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF RECREATION: WEBSITE USER GUIDE
THE ECONOMICS HOME PAGE
The Economics Home Page gives a general overview of economics in the National Forest System. To access the
Recreation Contribution page, use the link on the left hand side “National Forest Recreation Economic
Contributions”.
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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF RECREATION: WEBSITE USER GUIDE
On the Recreation page are sections describing, briefly, how local economic contributions are measured and
some analysis caveats to keep in mind. Note: The term “contributions” refers to a subset of economic
“benefits.” “Benefits” is a broad economic measure that can include many aspects of economic activity, e.g.
nonmarket values. Economic “contributions” is used to describe the role Forest Service natural resource
management plays in the local market economy as measured by jobs and income.
Economic measures used
•
•
•
Employment - described as average number of full and part time, temporary, seasonal jobs.
Labor income - value of wages, salaries, benefits and income to sole proprietors.
Gross regional product (GRP) - like Gross Domestic Product, GRP is defined as the market value of all
final goods and services produced within an analysis area.
Caveats
1. These are generic results which will differ from results for specific purposes such as forest plan
revision. Targeted results will differ due to differences such as:
a. Analysis area: The analysis areas for the models on this website were defined using a
standard protocol across forests for comparability. This may not make sense for a targeted
analysis such as for forest planning, restoration projects, etc.
b. Data source: The data used for the results on this website come from the National Visitor Use
Monitoring survey. For targeted analyses the Region/Forest may have different or projected
information.
c. Average vs. annual: For targeted results, it may make more sense to use 3 year averages to
even out swings in the data. The data used for the results on this website are annual and from
the year for which the result is reported.
2. Recreation contributions were derived from NVUM recreation visitation estimates from 2009 through
2012. Estimates for each year are derived from the most recent visit estimates for each forest, which
cover a five-year period. For example, the 2009 results are drawn from forest field data collected
from 2005 – 2009; 2010 comes from field data from 2006 – 2010; 2011 from 2007-2011; and
2012 from 2008 - 2012.
3. Forest level results CANNOT be added up to get state, regional or national totals due to overlapping
analysis areas and trade flow calculations.
4. Results are intended for internal use (i.e. by specialists). For external communications regarding
National Forest economic contributions, please consult a regional or WO economist first.
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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF RECREATION: WEBSITE USER GUIDE
RECREATION SITE
This is the Recreation Contribution Home Page. Please note:
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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF RECREATION: WEBSITE USER GUIDE
On the Recreation home page is the link to the report generator.
The NVUM Results Application (a different website) gives detailed information on visitor demographics, visitor
satisfaction, recreation activities and other data.
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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF RECREATION: WEBSITE USER GUIDE
Single Forest Repor t
After clicking the Report Generator link on the home page, a screen appears with instructions for generating
a report.
After selecting the Region, Forest, and Contribution Measure, click on one of the “View Report Options”
buttons to generate a report. First you’ll see a graph of the data followed by a table of the same
information. By resting the mouse over each bar on the graph, the data for that bar pops up. Every forest
report lists the Regional Office contact in the upper right hand corner.
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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF RECREATION: WEBSITE USER GUIDE
New Reports for the same Forest/Grassland/Region, year and contribution measure can be generated by
clicking on another Report Options button. Otherwise, start again by choosing the year, etc. Again, be patient
while the report is generated.
Repor ts by FS Region
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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF RECREATION: WEBSITE USER GUIDE
Multiple Forest and Grasslands or Regions Repor ts
It is also possible to display the results for multiple Forests and Grasslands within one FS Region, or multiple FS
Regions. To bring up that report window, click here
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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF RECREATION: WEBSITE USER GUIDE
Select multiple forests/grasslands/regions by holding down CTRL and clicking on names.
INSIDER TIP: The reports for multiple forests/regions are more colorful so I often use the Multiple Forest
report generator even if I’m only interested in a single forest or region since the reports are prettier.
NOTE: Analysis Areas may overlap and therefore multiple forest/grassland/region results cannot be summed
together. The result of doing so would be meaningless.
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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF RECREATION: WEBSITE USER GUIDE
PRINTING REPORTS
Reports do not print well from the Internet Explorer browser. An easy alternative is to open the Website in the
Google Chrome browser (if you have FS technical approval to use that browser) which prints the reports
clearly and will print a report to a pdf file. From within Chrome, to print to a pdf, click the menu icon in the
upper right of the screen, select Print and set Destination to Save to PDF.
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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF RECREATION: WEBSITE USER GUIDE
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Who is the audience for this website?
What is the site useful for?
How does this information differ from EPS-HDT?
Why can’t we add up forests?
Why is data only available for 2009 - 2012?
Why aren’t ecosystem services and non-market values included?
What is an “analysis area”? How is it defined?
1. Who is the audience for this website?
The information on this site can be access by anyone, and used to gain an appreciation for potential
economic impacts. However, the intended audience is Forest Service economists and social scientists.
The models and analysis protocols underlying the estimation of the contribution effects are difficult to
use correctly or consistently and interpretation of the results is nuanced and tricky. With the assistance
of economists, the website may be used by decision makers, public affairs officers, planning teams,
etc.
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2. What the site is useful for?
The website serves as an easy reference for many levels of the Agency. As calls for information come
in, resource specialists, planners, Forest Supervisors, Regional Office staff and Washington Office
staff have this information readily at hand, with assistance from economists and social scientists on
interpretation. Since the website will be updated every year, the information will be useful for
identifying trends and for monitoring, keeping in mind that visits and spending for each forest are
only updated every 5 years. Any trends in the interim are due to underlying economic changes alone.
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3. How does this information differ from EPS-HDT (the Human Dimensions Toolkit)?
Information displayed on the website differs significantly from the information contained in Economic
Profile System - Human Dimensions Toolkit (EPS-HDT), but the two systems are complimentary. EPS-HDT
gives trends and conditions, generally, for a particular county or set of counties. The Contribution
website displays, concretely, the economic ties between Forest Service management and local
communities. For example, EPS-HDT can display how many people are employed in the entire lodging
sector in an area, but in contrast, the website is more specific. Within the area of economic influence
for a Forest, the direct effects of lodging purchases by National Forest recreationists are calculated.
Then, the ripple effects that direct purchases of lodging has in the economy including supplies
purchased by the hotels, motels, campgrounds, wages paid to lodging employees, etc., are added in.
EPS-HDT gives a picture of the economic and demographic environment for the Forest while the
Contribution website answers the question, “So What?” “So,” the Forest Service decides how the
resource will be managed; and “what,” are the economic consequences for the local economy.
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4. Why can’t we add up forests?
This is very technical, but here goes:
The most important reason is that if we were to run, for example, a state model using the exact same
resource data as we put in individual forest models, the results wouldn’t be the same as adding up the
individual forest results. If we ran two forests together in the same model for some objective, the
results wouldn’t be the same as adding up the individual forest results. If someone added up all the
results for all the forests on the Contribution Website, they wouldn’t match the results of the recent
SPBA national analysis. To avoid dueling numbers, it’s really important to keep people from adding
up individual models. So, why doesn’t the sum of the pieces equal the whole?
a. This can occur because Output per Worker and other factors may be larger in a region of
economic concentration than in a state as a whole.
b. While typically state impacts are larger for Direct and Induced there are circumstances where
state ratios of income per worker or other factors may be significantly lower than a county's.
c. The state represents a weighted average of all the individual county relationships, so if your
county has a lower Output per Worker, Labor Income per Worker or lower Regional Purchase
Coefficients (RPCs) then it will likely be less than the state average. If you have a region that is
higher in one or more of these then it will be larger.
d. Generally, larger Study Areas have larger RPCs but this is not always the case. An RPC can
actually be small if the additional geography increases demand at a higher rate than it adds to
supply.
e. As we move into larger geographies the amount of local supply to meet local demand increases,
and thus purchases that were imports to smaller regions are now local in larger geographies
f. In general a larger region has less leakage due to imports and therefore is typically a larger
impact. However, it is actually quite possible for an industry to be more concentrated in terms of
output per worker, and compensation per worker in a region where there is specialization than in
the state as a whole, or where the remaining state is more rural that the county where the
economic change is occurring.
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5. Why are results only available for FY2009 - 2012?
The Contribution Website is dependent on 2 data sources; 1) IMPLAN, a commercial software and
data package that gives a baseline picture of the underlying economy and interactions in an
economy, and 2) central corporate databases such as NVUM (National Visitor Use Monitoring). There
is a time lag in both these data sources.
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6. Why aren’t ecosystem services and non-market values included?
The Contribution Website looks only at the narrow measures of jobs and income. Others in the Forest
Service are working on good measures for ecosystem services and non-market values. These measures
will complement the information contained on the Contribution Website.
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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF RECREATION: WEBSITE USER GUIDE
7. What is an “analysis area”? How is it defined?
The economic area of influence for a National Forest or Grassland, referred to as the “analysis area”,
was painstakingly defined using a detailed protocol. This yields an analysis area that more clearly
delineates where the greatest interactions are between FS resource management and the local
economy.
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