Visitor trends and future of US state parks

If the number of visitors to US state parks continues to increase, operating costs by the middle of the century are likely to surpass the budget appropriations of most states, according to a study. In the United States, the 50 state park systems recorded an all-time high of 807 million visits in 2017. Some studies suggest that visitation will increase as temperatures rise due to climate change. To investigate how visitation and climate might affect state park systems, Jordan W. Smith and colleagues developed a model that forecasts operating expenditures under four different scenarios: one scenario assuming that annual attendance will continue to follow trends observed over the past 34 years and three scenarios that follow greenhouse gas emission scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Under the first scenario, the model predicts that operating costs due to attendance increases will rise by 756% by the middle of the century. The increases are much larger than projected increases in operating costs under any of the climate-change scenarios. The findings portend an uncertain future for the nation's 50 state park systems unless state legislatures identify innovative solutions and management actions designed to generate additional funds, according to the authors.

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Article #19-02314: "Attendance trends threaten future operations of America's state park systems," by Jordan W. Smith, Emily Wilkins, and Yu-Fai Leung

MEDIA CONTACT: Jordan W. Smith, Utah State University, Logan, UT; tel: 1-435-830-6294; e-mail: jordan.smith@usu.edu