Appendix A: National Visitor Use Monitoring Definitions
NAME
Abbreviation
DEFINITION
UNITS OF MEASURE
NF Visit
NFV
The entry of one person upon a national forest to participate in recreation activities for an
unspecified period of time. A national forest visit can be composed of multiple site visits.
Site Visit
SV
the entry of one person onto a national forest site or area to participate in recreation activities for an
unspecified period of time
Site Day
A day that a recreation site or area is open to the public for recreation purposes
Recreation trip
The duration of time beginning when the visitor left their home and ending when they got back to
their home
Variance
The mean of the squares of the variations from the mean of a frequency distribution; a set of n
measurements y1, y2, y3…yn, with a mean y is the sum of the squared deviations divided by n-1.
Standard
deviation or
standard error
The square root of the variance; a statistic used as a measure of dispersion in a distribution, the
square root of the arithmetic average of the squares of the deviations from the mean
Coefficient of
variation
The standard error divided by the mean
Confidence
interval
A statistical range with a specified probability that a given parameter lies within the range
Error rate
The coefficient of variation multiplied by the specified confidence interval width
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Confidence
interval & error
rate
Used together these two terms define the reliability of the estimated visits. The confidence interval
defines the range of values around the estimated visits with a specified level of certainty. The error
rate is the upper and lower bounds of the confidence interval. The lower the error rate and the
higher the confidence level the better the estimate. An 80 percent confidence interval is very
acceptable at a broad national or forest scale. The two terms are used to statistically describe the
estimate. For example: at the 80 percent confidence level there are 209 million national forest visits
plus or minus 17 percent. In other words we are 80 percent confident that the estimated number of
national forest visits lies between 173.5 and 244.5 million.
SITE TYPES
Day Use
Developed Site
DUDS
Sites that meet the INFRA definition development scale for Moderate, Heavily, or High degree of
modification. These are sites that provide for visitor comfort, convenience and/or educational
opportunities. Sites with facilities that provide for health and safety only are not considered
developed sites. DUDS may include the following; picnic sites (family and group), fishing sites
(sometimes), fish viewing sites (sometimes), information sites (sometimes), interpretive sites
(sometimes), playgrounds, downhill ski areas, wildlife viewing sites (sometimes), developed caves,
winter play sites, and any other sites opened only for day use. Group proxy sites (15 or more
people) have different proxy codes than family proxy sites. Some developed sites listed in INFRA
do not count as DUDS in NVUM. This includes trailheads, boat launches, parking lots, OHV
staging areas, Scenic Overlooks, or Ranger Stations.
In Alaska and other very remote areas the same definition applies including listing developed
Shelters (outside Wilderness) as DUDS. Whenever the development scale of the site has a high
degree of modification which may include outhouses, shelters, and fire rings, list the site as a
DUDS. In the case of low use Shelters, the “use level” category can be used to minimize
interviewing on 0 use days. For example, list open site days as Low only on weekends and show
Closed the rest of the year even though the site is not physically closed- use is the same as if it were
closed.
Note that in Region 10 it was decided NOT to list Shelters in Wilderness as DUDS, which is the
same rule as applies to other regions. Also note that the Interpretive programs on the Alaska Marine
Highway ferry system, although listed in INFRA as an interpretive site are NOT considered DUDS
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in NVUM. This travel route should be listed in the View Corridor stratum.
Overnight
Developed Site
OUDS
sites with facilities that meet the INFRA definition for development scales of Moderate, Heavily, or
High degree of modification. These sites include campgrounds (family and group), fire lookouts
and cabins available for overnight lodging (including all those outside designated Wilderness in
Alaska), resorts, lodges, hotels, horse camps, and any other overnight developed sites on NFS lands
whether managed by the Forest Service or private business (concession or special use permit).
Proxy group campgrounds (sites that hold 15 or more people) have different proxy codes than
family proxy campgrounds.
Following are things that may be considered as overnight developed sites in INFRA that do not
count under the NVUM OUDS strata:

Recreation residences - they are counted as part of GFA use at the time of the interview.

Organization Camps (church, scout, etc) - use will be counted at the end of the year through
the SUP use reports and added to the total use on the forest.

Lesser-developed campgrounds such as small hunters camps (with limited facilities) - the
use will be captured under GFA strata. If the facilities are rustic and are not designed for the
comfort and convenience of the visitor the sites are not developed sites for the purpose of the
NVUM project.

Do not include any facilities located on private property, even when located within the
Forest boundary – however if there are trails or access points where people go from the
private property to the Forest to recreate they should be included as a GFA exit point.

Recreation events will not be listed on the spreadsheet - Forests will track this use separately
using a special events form, reporting the total number of visitors on a quarterly basis. This
use will be added to the totals at the end of the year.

Cabins outside Wilderness should be listed as OUDS
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Wilderness
W
Areas in the Forest that are part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. List all trailheads
and other access points such as boat take-outs. Proxy counts would include mandatory wilderness
permits required of ALL users (day and overnight).
In Region 10 and other very remote, low use Wilderness capturing visitors has proven extremely
difficult. For remote Wilderness with cabins, list the cabins as an exit point. Do this only if it is
highly unlikely those cabin users would be caught elsewhere. For example, cabins in Wilderness
along the Appalachian Trail would not be listed as access points because the cabin users would also
be captured as they exit along the AT trail. However cabins in Wilderness with NO trail access
would serve as the only likely place the visitor would ever get captured, and should then be listed.
Wilderness users in the lower 48 are usually captured at trailheads, boat take-outs, or roads as they
exit the Wilderness. However, in Alaska most Wilderness access is by boat or float plane.
Capturing this use is challenging. For example, in Year 1 2.4 million acres of designated
Wilderness were within the sample area, yet there were only 37 miles of trail. Air carriers and boat
harbors were used to capture these visitors and yielded only 31 interviews on 30 sample days. 21
Wilderness days were sampled at boat harbors. On nine days (42%) interviews were obtained and
on 8 days no traffic counts were obtained. Air carrier sample points were also mixed. Wilderness
had 4 sample days at air carriers, which yielded no interviews at all (0%), and no traffic counts on 2
of those days. As a result of this, both Wilderness cabin use and Outfitter Guide use of Wilderness
have been added to the Wilderness use counts in Alaska.
List each Wilderness cabin separately as a Wilderness exit point. These will be proxy sites. A
special sampling strategy for cabins has also been developed. Special procedures for sampling
cabins are outlined in the Interviewer handbook.
List boat docks/harbors and air carriers that may serve as Wilderness exit points in the pre-work.
When rating the open site days as high, medium, or low, remember you are rating high, medium or
low exiting Wilderness use at the harbor or air carrier, not general use or even general forest use.
Outfitter & Guide use of Wilderness will be reported on the quarterly “Recreation Special Event and
Organization Camp report submitted during the sample year. In Alaska this use is proxy and should
be listed in the proxy data as PTC1.
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General Forest
Area
GFA
Include all dispersed recreation use other than Wilderness (hiking, fishing, water sports, etc.). There
are differences between the NVUM and INFRA definition of General Forest Areas (GFA). For the
NVUM project the entire dispersed area of the forest is considered one big GFA and is not broken
down by county or district as it is in INFRA.
Roads included in the GFA category are almost always forest service managed or maintained roads.
In some instances non-forest service roads are entered ONLY because they are the most logical
place to stop visitors who have actually recreated ON the general forest area accessed by the road.
General Forest Areas in Alaska are often accessed by water or air transportation. The visitors NF
experience may occur many miles from their transportation take-off point. Therefore, boat harbors
and air carriers are major exit sample points to capture GFA visits in Alaska. This strategy provided
mixed results during Year 1 sampling. GFA had 21 sample days at air-carriers, which yielded
interviews on 12 days (57%). No traffic counts were obtained on 16 of those days. Seven GFA
days were sampled at boat harbors and yielded NO interviews (0%). On 4 of those days no traffic
counts were obtained. The forest said there was a difference in obtaining visitor information from
fixed wing versus helicopter air carriers. There was also a problem getting information and
permission to interview at some air carrier exit points.
Special attention must be paid to the categorization of boat docks/ harbors during the forest prework. Make sure there will be recreation use, or at least the chances of finding at least one
recreation visitor are fairly high. This means listing the area as closed/0 use during the off-season.
Boat harbors are difficult to categorize and sample because 1) some have multiple docks and one
parking lot 2) some have multiple docks and several parking lots 3) some have mixed use but a
different proportion of each type of use (rec/ nonrec) on each dock in the same harbor. It’s critical
during the pre-work to visit the boat harbors to determine the actual situation.

If there are multiple boat ramps or docks that 1) serve the same type of users (recreation and
commercial) and 2) all users go to the same parking lot, then list the boat harbor as just one
site.

If there are multiple boat ramps or docks that go to different parking lots associated with the
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harbor complex, break the boat harbor into the logical components; matching boat ramps to
parking lots and list each as a separate site in the pre-work. List all ramps to the same
parking lot together unless they serve very different users. For example Sealing harbor has
multiple ramps going into the same parking lot. Its possible to get a 24- hour count in the
parking lot and interview in the parking lot.

Note: when combining separate ramps into one site it may change the use stratum- for
example each separate ramp was listed as low use but when 5 ramps are combined they
become 1 medium use site….

If there are multiple boat ramps or docks but these serve different types or proportions of
users, list each ramp or dock as a separate site. For example, at Ketchikan harbor one dock
is primarily commercial fisherman, one is tour boat operators, one is a mixture of private
boats commercial and recreation, and yet another is primarily out of area boat moorage. All
the docks need to be listed as separate sites in the pre-work. None are representative of the
other.

Exclude strictly commercial docks from the pre-work because the likelihood of finding
National Forest visitors is very slim.

If some ramps get more use than others don’t list them together.
Categorization of Air Carriers
Air carriers may be located at public float docks or private commercial docks. When listing aircarriers as GFA or Wilderness exit points list only those where visitors end up setting foot ON
national forest land, not just fly over it. Before committing data sources as proxy in the pre-work
track down the data source and make sure the proxy data is both available and useful for the study.
If the data available doesn’t fit one of the already established proxy codes but you think it might be
useful call Don English to discuss. Several types of counts that qualify as proxy are possible.

Total craft landing at a float pond or dock. In this case we will need interviews to calibrate
the number of landings for national forest recreation versus total landings.

Total aircraft landing on the national forest land. Cordova was able to get this for the pilot
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study but we aren’t sure this is commonly available information.
Outfitter Guide use reports as proxy for GFA use: Outfitter and Guide reports are not permitted as
proxy for GFA because of the possibility of double counting the same visitors. An exception can be
made in special cases where the forest has a very remote area only used by O&G and can provide an
accurate count for that area only.
View Corridor
VC
Measures the number of visitors who only pass through the NFS lands to view the scenery. These
visitors travel on non-forest service managed corridors such as state, interstate, or county
highways, rivers, trails, trains, and boats, but the visitor does not actually recreate on the Forest.
View Corridor listed travelways are ALWAYS non-forest service owned. Airplane travel that does
not originate on NFS lands is not included in this stratum. To identify travelways for Round 2:
Gather all travelways information relevant to the forest including those listed in round 1, any scenic
roads on the drop down list of the Access database, and any other non-FS managed travelways on
the forest with scenic qualities that are at least in part dependant upon the national forest scenery.
Consult with the Forest Engineer and Forest Landscape Architect to be sure no important scenic
travelways are overlooked.
Next, apply the Scenic Management System or Visual Management System criteria to the list
developed above. All forests have previously conducted a scenic inventory for Forest Planning,
although in same cases this inventory may be hard to locate or may be outdated.
Apply the SMS or VMS criteria only to non-forest service travelways. Landscapes are viewed to
varying degrees from different locations and subsequently differ in their importance. To assist
scenic inventory and analysis, this importance can be ranked by concern levels. Concern levels are
a measure of the degree of public importance placed on landscapes viewed from travelways. They
are divided into three levels; high, medium and low. List only those travelways that meet concern
levels 1 or 2 as shown in the table below.
Apply this scenic criteria to travelways identified in Step 1. Then edit the NVUM Access database,
View Corridor tab with this information. Additional information in this database page include the
begin milepost of the travelway, the segment length in miles, and the latitude and longitude
information. If there is an interview point along this travelway use the latitude and longitude of this
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point. If there is no interview point use the latitude and longitude of the begin milepost.
Table 1. Scenic Management System Concern Levels for Travelways (SMS handbook page 4-8).
HIERARCHY OF CONCERN LEVELS
Interest in Scenery
High
Medium
Low
Primary Travelway high use
1
2
2
Primary Travelway-moderate use
1
2
2
Primary Travelway- low use
1
2
3
Secondary Travelway- high use
1
2
2
Secondary Travelway- moderate use
1
2
3
Secondary Travelway- low use
1
2
3
Important note: This category caused the most over-counting of national forest visits in the old RIM
system. Many forests used this category to “up” their use numbers by counting all traffic on
interstates that passed near their forest. THIS IS NOT ALLOWED. The VC count is only for those
travelways that visitors purposely choose to view national forest scenery. This number is separate
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from the National Forest Visit total that will be reported. Playing games here will NOT increase
national forest visits.
Off Forest
Recreation
Activities
OFF
In Round 1 some Forests choose to list off site Visitor Centers, Interpretive Programs, etc that are
not on FS land but FS recreation dollars are spent on them. In Round 2, the forest should move any
qualifying roads or trails into the View Corridor stratum. The remaining items listed in OFF will not
be counted or sampled and need not be updated.
USE LEVELS- all but the Closed strata are defined by the forest
No use
N
A site or area is administratively closed, inaccessible, or expect to see less than one last exiting
person from dawn to dusk. Formerly labeled “closed”.
Low
L
At least 1 last exiting recreation person is expected from dawn to dusk
Medium
M
Defined by forest
High
H
Defined by forest
Very High
V
use for sites that have high use AND the visitor characteristics are very different from other sites
within the stratum
Daily Use
Record of sites
occupied
DUR4
Daily use record of sites with PAOT of 14 or less, use for OUDS campgrounds where either FS or
concessionaire records occupied campsites on a daily bases, can also use for DUDS picnic sites
Daily Use
Record of group
sites occupied
DUR5
Daily use record of sites with PAOT of 15 or more, use for OUDS campgrounds where either FS or
concessionaire records occupied campsites on a daily bases, can also use for DUDS picnic sites
Fee Envelopes
per person
FE1
NO LONGER USED- USE FR1
Fee Envelopes
issued per
FE3
Fee envelopes issued per vehicle, use in OUDS and DUDS
PROXY CODES
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vehicle
Fee Envelopes
issued per site
FE4
Fee envelopes issued per family site with a PAOT of 14 or less, use in OUDS and DUDS. For
PAOT of 15 or more use FR5.
Fee Receipts
issued per person
FR1
Fee receipts or tickets sold to individual people only. Do not use for ski area winter use. Use in
DUDS where a daily pass is sold or individual ticket sales indicate use. Do not use for OUDS.
Fee Receipts
issued per small
group
FR2
Fee receipts or tickets sold per group of 14 or less people
Fee Receipts
issued per
vehicle
FR3
Fee receipts or tickets sold per vehicle.
Fee Receipts
issued per large
group
FR5
Envelopes, permits, or tickets sold per large group of 15 or more people.
Mandatory
Permit issued per
person
MA1
Use in Wilderness only. Mandatory permit issued per person for day AND overnight use of entire
area
Mandatory
permit issued per
small group
MA2
Use in Wilderness only. Mandatory permit issued per small group for day AND overnight use of
entire area
Permanent
Traffic Counter
that counts
people
PTC1
Use in any stratum where every person using the site is counted by the counter, count must be oneway
Permanent
Traffic counter
PTC2
NO LONGER USED- USE OTHER CODES
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that counts
groups
Permanent
Traffic Counter
that counts
vehicles
PTC3
Use in any stratum where every vehicle using the site is counted by the counter, count must be oneway and adjusted for axles
Registration
RF1
Forms per person
NO LONGER USED- USE RE1
Registration
Forms per group
RF2
NO LONGER USED- USE RE2
Registration
forms per room
RF4
NO LONGER USED- USE RE4
Registration
forms by
individual
RE1
Use in OUDS lodges, cabins, resorts, where managers report total number of person nights sold
from registers
Registration
forms by small
group
RE2
Use in any stratum where 14 or fewer people register as one small group. One registration = one
group
Registration
forms by room
RE4
Registration forms for room nights sold use for OUDS lodges, resorts, etc where owner can report
total number of room nights sold. Do not use for DUDS, campgrounds, huts or dorms that hold
more than one group in one room at a time.
Skier Visits
SV1
Use for DUDS ski areas where ski area provides the total number of skier days on a report rather
than the number of lift tickets sold. The ski area has adjusted this to reflect season pass use, etc.
Skier Tickets
issued per
individual
ST1
Use for DUDS ski areas (winter only) where the ski area reports total tickets sold but does not
distinguish between season passes or daily passes.
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Special Use
Permit issued per
individual
SUP1
NO LONGER USED- use other appropriate code for individual counts
Special Use
permit issued per
group
SUP2
NO LONGER USED- USE SUP4 or other appropriate code
Special use
permit per site or
cabin
SUP4
Use for OUDS cabins, resorts where one permit is issued per group of 14 or fewer people per visit
(not for entire season); also FS cabins rented under G-T permits. For larger groups use FR5
Toll booth
person count
TB1
Use when GFA is close to forest boundary and there are no non toll booth entries into the area, use
for DUDS and OUDS only if every person that enters has to pay (no season passes)
Toll booth car
count
TB3
Use when GFA is close to forest boundary and there are no non toll booth entries into the area, use
for DUDS and OUDS only if every vehicle that enters has to pay (no season passes)
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