1. Individual Recreation Use & value as a function of Stream features
Prepared by:
Juan Marcos González & John B. Loomis
Dept. of Agricultural and Resource Economics
Colorado State University

2. Travel Cost Model (TCM)
Recreation Demand Model
Takes advantage of the fact that each individual visit to a recreation site involves an implicit transaction of travel cost.
People choose the number of visits during a season.
Individual site use is estimated.

3. Travel Cost Model (TCM)
The individual demand for seasonal visits to the sites considered is defined as:
rij is the number trips taken in a season by individual i to site j
pj is the cost associated to site j
vj is a vector of characteristics site j has
mi stands for the income
zi represent a set of particular individual characteristics of the visitor

4. Final Recreation Model
Recreation Variables
Final Recreation Model
Biology & Recreation Model
Hydrology & Recreation Model
Final Full Model

5. Hypothesis Tests Overall Hypothesis
Are commonly measured hydrologic variables statistically significant (e.g. cfs) in recreation demand model?
Are additional site specific field measurement hydrological variables statistically significant in a recreation demand model?
Do these additional hydrologic variables add explanatory power?

6. Study Area

7. Data Collection Location Sites In person interviews
El Yunque, Caribbean National Forest.
Eastern part of the island of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Region.
Sites
Visitors from 11 sites were surveyed.
Espiritu Santo
Mameyes
In person interviews
Interviews were done by UPR students during summer 2005.
Included weekdays, weekends and holydays.
Questions included visitor demographics, number of visits and perceived site conditions.

8. Results Recreation Variables Recreation Only travel cost -0.0423 ***
travel cost
***
road
0.3852
waterfall
0.9483
streamflow_day
0.0217
picnic_tables
small_pool **
medium_pools
0.4298
trash_cans
0.0936 *
formal_trails
restaurants
1.4426
constant
Log Likelihood
Pseudo R2 (adjusted)
0.2001

9. Results Hydrology & Recreation
Variables
Rec+Hydrology
travel cost
***
road
0.1969
waterfall
1.0131
streamflow_day
0.0222
picnic_tables
small_pool
medium_pools
0.4598
trash_cans
0.0903 *
formal_trails
Restaurants
1.3963
Constant
mean_annual_discharge
n.s
avg_unit_stream_power
geopotential_energy_flux
0.0000
dist_pool_to bridge
bedrock_percent
0.0180
n.s 
chi2( 4) = 2.28
Log Likelihood
Pseudo R2 (adjusted)
0.1978

10. Conclusions
Std Hydrological Variables such as stream flow, pool size, waterfall have a statistically significant effect on recreation use.
With these variables included, bedrock, mean annual discharge, average unit stream power are not statistically significant.
These additional hydrologic variables did not add any explanatory power beyond the Std Hydrological Variables

11. Questions