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How to Quantify Coastal Recreation in an Estuary: Methods for estimating the number of participants and value of recreation for coastal access points
Citation:
Mazzotta, M., N. Merrill, S. Atkinson, J. Sawyer, K. Mulvaney, AND T. Dalton. How to Quantify Coastal Recreation in an Estuary: Methods for estimating the number of participants and value of recreation for coastal access points. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-20/325, 2020.
Impact/Purpose:
Estuaries provide a number of recreation opportunities for the surrounding coastal communities. Many of these activities, such as swimming and recreational fishing, are impacted by water quality degradation. In order to calculate how many people are impacted by degradation or improvement, we need to know how many recreational users there are, but that information rarely exists. To meet this need, we designed a simple method for measuring how many people use an estuary.
Description:
This report presents tested methods that can be applied relatively easily and quickly using onsite observations to estimate total daily visitation to coastal access points for which daily counts are not generally taken. These methods can be used at both small and larger water access points common to estuaries and other coastal areas and can account for various uses at these locations. These methods do not require interrupting recreators with surveys. We provide instructions to walk the user through the methods step-by-step, illustrated with example applications to the Three Bays estuary system on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and to selected sites around Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. Along with this report are data sheets for recording observations and spreadsheets to compile data and apply the models to estimate total visits from counts of cars and people at public access points. We include functions for estimating dollar values for beach use that can be used to estimate the value of total use or of lost use of coastal areas from events such as a beach closure.
URLs/Downloads:
HOW TO QUANTIFY COASTAL RECREATION IN AN ESTUARY FINAL REPORT (PDF, 79 pp, 3028 KB, about PDF)Continuous Count Data Entry
Continuous count data entry NarrBay data
Periodic Count data entry NarrBay data
Periodic Count data entry
WTP tool for beaches
Field Data Sheets