1. Inventory Design Workshop
National Visitor Use Monitoring
Notes:
Before beginning this presentation:
Print for each participant:
Agenda
Project Overview
Updated NVUM Contacts & Resources
The Stratification Process
Crosswalk between NVUM & Infra
Proxy Codes
Write on a white-board
Forest-specific use-levels
Forest Service

2. Agenda Introduction – Why NVUM? Statistical Process
Site Types and Use Levels
What’s Next?
Notes:
Today we’ll cover four topics related to Inventory Design,
An introduction to the National Visitor Use Monitoring Program which is the umbrella program responsible for Inventory Design.
A review of the scientific approach to Inventory Design
Then we’ll get into the nuts and bolts of how all of our inventory (sites and areas) are designed (in this scientific process)
Lastly, we’ll transition from this presentation to the real work of reviewing our inventory and our design and making any changes that are needed.

3. National Visitor Use Monitoring (NVUM) Program Summary
Estimates of the volume and characteristics of recreation visitation using an on-site sampling strategy
Quantifies benefits
Required element in National Forest plans
RELATED TO FOREST RECREATION BUDGET ALLOCATIONS
Notes:
Request that a volunteer read paragraph 1 of the National Visitor Use Monitoring Results Summary (aka Master Report).
READ:
The National Visitor Use Monitoring (NVUM) program provides science-based estimates of the volume and characteristics of recreation visitation to the National Forest System, as well as the benefits recreation brings to the American public. Information about the quantity and quality of recreation visits is required for the National Forest plans, Executive Order (Setting Customer Service Standards), and implementation of the National Recreation Agenda. The NVUM program ensures that all visitor statistics for National Forests and grasslands produced by the Forest Service use a standardized measure. These standards were established by the Forest Service in the 1970s (the application of these standards has been modified over time).

4. Why did the National Use Monitoring Program Begin?
There was no consistency in how visitors were counted.
In 1995…
the US population was 263 million.
the Forest Service reported 850 million visits.
850 million visits divided by 263 million people
= 3.2 visits per person
Notes:
In the past, there was literally no consistency in how visitor use was counted or reported across the forest system.

5. NVUM Program Goals
Goal 1: Estimate the number of visitors to national forests and grasslands.
Goal 2: Product descriptive information about visitation.
Notes:
The National Visitor Use Monitoring Program has two primary goals: Quantify and Qualify recreation visitation to national forests and grasslands.

6. Agenda: Statistics Introduction Statistical Process
Site Types and Use Levels
What’s Next?
Notes:
Does anyone have any questions about that the National Visitor Use Monitoring Program is and how it is used?
Now, let’s transition into how the scientific process behind the NVUM Program.

7. Estimating Visitation
We measure visitation by Place and Time
Visitation is measured upon exit from the national forest
Notes:
The NVUM Program measures visitation in place and time. It breaks down, or categorizes forests by recreation sites and areas and by days. It actually takes into account every recreation site and area and every day of the year.
Try this visualization: people are flowing into and out of the forest, how do we decide where to stop and measure them? Think about downstream funnel points that are capturing people as they exit the forest.
NVUM uses on-site sampling that captures the exiting volume of traffic (both people and vehicles) and their survey responses.

8. Define Site Days The forest is divided by: Place (forest exit points)
Time (days, totaling 365)
Each Place and Time is a Site Day
Notes:
Each place needs to be considered every day in the year.
Site Day = one FS recreation site or area open for one day.
For the entire sampling year, each day on each site is given a rating of very high, high, medium, low, or no use according to the expected level of recreational visitors who would be observed leaving that location for the last time (last exiting recreation use) on that day. The combination of a calendar day and a site or area is called a site day. Site days are the basic sampling unit for the NVUM protocol.

9. Scientific Process Stratified random sample
Results are estimates of the total population
Population
Notes:
In this picture, the stream represents the Population, the bottle represents the Sample. The Sample is gathered from inside the Population.
Sample

10. Stratified Random Sampling
Divide the population into subgroups according to common characteristics or “strata”
Select a random sample from each subgroup
Combine samples from subgroups into one sample
Notes:
Stratification is the process of grouping members of a population into relatively similar subgroups before sampling.

11. Agenda: Site Types & Use
Introduction
Statistical Process
Site Types and Use Levels
What’s Next?
Notes:
Do you have any questions related to the scientific process behind NVUM?
Let’s transition now into the nuts and bolts of NVUM.

12. How do we sample visitation on the Forest?
Notes:
Visitation is estimated through a combination of traffic counts and surveys of exiting visitors. Both are obtained on a random sample of locations and days distributed over an entire forest for a year.
All of the surveyed recreation visitors are asked about their visit duration, activities, demographics, travel distance, and annual usage.
About one-third are also asked a series of questions about satisfaction.
Another one-third are asked to provide information about their income, spending while on their trip, and the next best substitute for the visit.

13. NVUM has 3 levels of stratification
Level 1: Proxy or Non Proxy
Level 2: Site Type
Level 3: Exiting Use Levels

14. NVUM has 3 levels of stratification – Proxy vs Non Proxy
Level 1: Proxy or Non Proxy
Level 2: Site Type
Level 3: Exiting Use Levels
Notes:

15. Classifying Site Days into Groups Based on Proxy Information
Direct counts of visitors to a site or area by an individual, group, or vehicle.
Represents ALL visitors to a site or area (80% or higher compliance rate)
Examples: campsite fee envelopes, skier visits, cabin reservations, mandatory permits
What is Proxy?
Notes:
What is proxy information?
Ask for a volunteer to “google” Proxy
In NVUM proxy information:
Directly counts visitors
Is collected outside of the NVUM program
Represents ALL visitors to a site or area. Proxy data must be counting 80% or more of the visitors to the site. An example of 80% compliance is a ski resort selling 80% or more of visitors a ski pass. An example of non-compliance is a trailhead sign in – where we assume less than 80% of visitors voluntarily sign.
Other examples of proxy sites are campsite fee envelopes, cabin reservations, and rafting permits.

16. NVUM has 3 levels of stratification: Site Type
Level 1: Proxy or Non Proxy
Level 2: Site Type
Level 3: Exiting Use Levels
Notes:
Today, you will be asked to classify all recreation sites and areas on your forest into five basic categories called “site types”: Day Use Developed Sites (DUDS), Overnight Use Developed Sites (OUDS), Designated Wilderness Areas (Wilderness), General Forest Areas (GFA), and View Corridors (VC). A note that only the first four site types are used to estimate visitation, View Corridor information is not currently used.
Note also that not all forests and districts will have all site sites.

17. Classifying Site Days into Groups Based on Site Type
Day Use Developed (DUDS)
Overnight Use Developed (OUDS)
General Forest Areas (GFA)
Wilderness
View Corridor
Notes:
Each place is classified into a Site Type. Here are a list of the site types.

18. Site Type – Day Use Developed Sites (DUDS)
Includes
Picnic sites
Interpretive sites
Ski areas
Scenic overlooks
Some fishing and winter play areas
Does not include
Trailheads
Boat ramps
OHV staging areas
Parking lots
Notes:
DUDS sites must meet the Infra definition for development scale of moderate, heavy, or high degree of modification (or Dev Scale 3-5), which 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.
There is no need to look at every site in Infra to reclassify based on development scale – unless significant improvements where made, in which case they will need to add a site and develop a site calendar for the new site.
PROMPTS: Have the Infra Development Scale guidelines available for reference. The document is available at:

19. Site Type – Overnight Use Developed Sites (OUDS)
Includes
Campgrounds
Rental Cabins & Lookouts
Resorts
Lodges
Does not include
Organization Camps
Recreation Residents
Private facilities within the NFS boundary
Notes:
Similar to Day Use Sites, OUDS sites must have facilities that meet the Infra definition for development scales of moderate, heavy, or high degree of modification (or Dev Scale 3-5).
Some sites you might consider developed overnight sites in Infra that are NOT counted in this stratum as OUDS include:
organizational camps,
recreation residences
facilities on private land within the NFS boundary,
Other examples include: lesser developed hunting camps, and recreation special events.
Organizational camps are captured as Proxy Sites, recreation residences and other private facilities within the NFS boundary are all captured as exiting GFA (or General Forest Area) traffic.

20. Site Type – General Forest Area (GFA)
Includes
Dispersed Recreation
Generally sampled at forest exits points, including rivers, lakes, trailheads, and roadsides.
Remember: EXITING VISITORS
Notes:
GFA includes all other dispersed recreation use other than in Wilderness.
Imagine a large net stretched across all your forest exit points including rivers, lakes, trailheads, and roads.
At these exit points, interviewers wait for visitors to exit across these points.
Your entire forest is treated as one large general forest area for NVUM.
Recreation residence use (think of a giant wooden tent) is counted as part of GFA use.

21. Site Type – Wilderness Includes
Designated Wilderness
Generally sampled at trailheads or roads leaving from trailheads.
Remember: EXITING VISITORS
Notes:

22. Site Type – View Corridor
Non-Forest Service managed roads (typically Federal, State, County roads)
Visitors are passing through National Forest System lands, but may not actually recreate on NFS lands
NOTE: If a road is a Forest Service managed road, then it should be listed as a GFA site.
Notes:

23. A B C D E Site Type Trivia 1. Day Use Developed (DUDS)
2. Overnight Use Developed (OUDS)
3. General Forest Area (GFA)
4. Wilderness
5. View Corridor A B C D E
Answer Key:
1. Day Use Developed Site (DUDS) = D (marina)
2. Overnight Use Developed Site (OUDS) = A (developed campground)
3. General Forest Area (GFA) = E (dispersed camping)
4. Wilderness = C (wilderness trailhead)
5. View Corridor = B (highways through the forest used by people to view forest scenery and not to recreate on the forest)

24. Bonus Round!
What Site Type category is represented in this photo? (Hint: think about the recreation destination).
Answer Key:
General Forest Area (GFA). The majority of users of this site are traveling to recreate at/on another destination (the water). This same principle applies to trailheads.

25. NVUM has 3 levels of stratification: Use Levels
Level 1: Proxy or Non Proxy
Level 2: Site Type
Level 3: Exiting Use Levels
Notes:

26. Classifying Site Days into Groups Based on Exiting Use Levels
Expected volume of exiting traffic is divided into groups:
Very High
High
Medium
Low
No Use or
The type of Proxy information collected.
Notes:
The exiting use levels used in the NVUM program are not related to the occupancy and use levels described in Infra. It is important to think about these two concepts separately.
For each day of the year for each recreation site or area, the site day is categorized as very high, high, medium or low last exiting recreation traffic, or no exiting use. No Use could mean either that the location is administratively closed, or it is open but expected to have zero exiting visitors.
Not all Forests will have all exiting use levels.
Not all Districts will have all exiting use levels.

27. Use Level Example Site Type: DUDS Picnic Area Exiting Traffic
Winter months (120 days) = No Exiting Use
Shoulder and summer season weekends (70 days) = High Exiting Use
Shoulder and summer season weekdays (175 days) = Medium Exiting Use
Notes:
For example a picnic area listed as having no use during winter months (120 days), high last exiting recreation volume on all other weekends (70 days) and medium last exiting recreation use on the remaining midweek days (175 days).
This accounts for all 365 days of the year.
This process is repeated for every site and area on the forest.
120 𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑁𝑜 𝑈𝑠𝑒 +70 𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝐿𝑜𝑤 𝑈𝑠𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑀𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑢𝑚 𝑈𝑠𝑒 = ?𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠

28. Exiting Use Levels Forest-wide perspective
Rank all site days on the forest relative to each other (some districts and/or sites may not have all exiting use levels)
Exit traffic volume varies during the week/season/year
Notes:
Remember: this is a forest-wide perspective. All site days should be ranked across the forest, not by individual districts. That being said, some Districts may not have all of the exiting use levels.
When you are developing your site calendars (which we will do later in the workshop), think about patterns of use at sites across the forest. Think about the differences in exiting traffic during the summer season, during hunting season, and Christmas tree season (if your forest has a Christmas tree cutting program).
Lastly, you can choose to count vehicles (like on roads) or people (like at trailheads) that are exiting the forest.

29. Site Calendar: Rim Campground
Grey = No Exiting
Green = Low Exiting
Blue = Medium Exiting
Yellow = High Exiting
Orange = Very High Exiting
Notes:
At this time, Forest staff should pull out their own site calendars and follow along as you review the onscreen calendar.
This is a site calendar. Every recreation site and area on the forest has a site calendar. Every day of the year on the site calendar is classified by the amount of exiting traffic: None, Low, Medium, High, or Very High.
Let’s take a closer look at the site calendar for the Rim Campground. In this example, the forest would expect exiting traffic to fluctuate through the majority of the use levels. It appears that September through February this site has a low level of exiting traffic during the week, with medium to high exiting traffic on the weekends. The rest of the year, March through August, the forest would expect exiting volume to increase during the week and higher on the weekends.
Trivia: Looking at the variation of use across the year, what can be said about where this site is in the United States? (POSSIBLE ANSWERS: the site is open and accessible year-round. Use picks up in March, so this site may be from a place with mild winters. Actual forest: Prescott National Forest in Arizona).
Also note the red boxes on the site calendar. The red boxes are around holiday dates. In 2017, May 29th is Memorial Day. When you are adjusting site calendars, consider how holidays affect exiting traffic levels. In this example, look closely at the Memorial Day holiday. It looks like the forest expects this site to have higher exiting traffic on Memorial Day Monday than on regular Mondays.

30. Site Calendar: Bear Trailhead
Grey = No Exiting
Green = Low Exiting
Blue = Medium Exiting
Yellow = High Exiting
Orange = Very High Exiting
Notes:
This is another site calendar example.
Trivia: Describe the pattern of exiting use at this site. (Ask the audience why there would be no expected exiting traffic November through mid-May).

31. All Site Days Accounted For in One of the Buckets
No Use
Low Use
Medium Use
High Use
Very High Use
Notes:
All Site Days are placed into the appropriate bucket based on exiting traffic volume.

32. Samples are Taken from Each Bucket0%
No Use
0.5%
Low Use
2.3%
Medium Use
6.9%
High Use
30.8%
Very High Use
Notes:
Here is the average frequency of sampling across all Site Types (DUDS, OUDS, GFA, and Wilderness). Out of all of the Low Use Site Days, across all Site Types, only .5% of the Low Exiting Use Days are sampled, 2.3% of Medium Exiting Use Days, 6.9% of all High Exiting Use Days, and 30.8% of all Very High Exiting Use Days are sampled.
Please note, that sampling rates vary across Site Types. These averages are presented to show you sampling trends; as exiting traffic use goes up, the sampling rate goes up.
Trivia: Why do you think that is? (Answer: We want to randomly sample days more High and Very High Days when we expect a high volume of people to be exiting.)

33. Exiting Use Level Days
Exiting use level days should fall in these percentages:
• VERY HIGH – No more than 2 – 5% of all site days, if used
• HIGH – About 10% of the site days
• MEDIUM – About % of the site days
• LOW – About 45% of the site days
Notes:
All of the recreation sites and areas on your forest should be accounted for in one of the “buckets” (DUDS, OUDS, Wilderness, GFA, and View Corridor). The number of days in each bucket , should fall in within these percentages. Remember that not all categories are used on each forest (for example, Very High and High).  

34. Relationship Between Exiting Use Level Days and Samples
Use level Category
Occurrence of Days
Sample Rate
Very High
2-5%
30.8%
High
10%
6.9%
Medium
11-40%
2.3%
Low
45%
0.5%
Notes:
There is an inverse relationship to the occurrence of Site Days and the Sampling rate of those Days. For example, most forests have fewer Very High Days of exiting traffic (usually limited to busy weekend traffic at popular sites) and more Low Days of exiting traffic. The inverse is true for sampling rates. The NVUM program samples more Very High and High Days than Low Days.

35. Activity for Sampling Rates of Different Use Level Days?
Notes:
This activity also answers a frequent question, why some sites are sampled more frequently than others. For example, some forests have one or two sites that have Very High or High Days of exiting traffic throughout the year. Those Site Days are sampled more frequently, at 7% for High Days and 39% for Very High Days.
Paper Square Exercise
Exercise Goal: An example of how often NVUM site days are sampled between exiting use levels (No Use, Low Use, Medium Use, High Use, Very High Use) for Overnight Use Developed Sites (OUDS).
Refer to the instruction document for facilitator prep.

36. Use Level Ranges Notes:
Before introducing this slide, ask participants to refer to their forest use levels. At this time you should refer to the use levels for the specific forest. Have their use levels ready for them to discuss.
This is a screen capture of forest use levels ranges in the NVUM Inventory Design Application. This is where we can view forest-specific use level ranges across site types and proxy status, like what constitutes a low day, a medium day, a high day, or a very high day on one forest. These ranges are established by the forest and can be changed as conditions change.
The view here pulls in all of the three levels of stratification that we’ve been talking about today – Site Type, Proxy Status, and Use Levels.
Let’s talk a bit about this forests use level ranges. The first column contains the list of site types (DUDS, GFA, OUDS, View Corridor, and Wilderness). In the second column we see the proxy status of the site types. Next we have the units of how exiting traffic volume is counted. Forests can choose to count either exiting People or exiting Vehicles. These units of measurement vary across forests. Why would it make sense to count people vs. vehicles? (Answer: Counting people as they are leaving the Wilderness trail may be more appropriate than counting vehicles). The average number of people per vehicle can be found in each forests Master Report (Table 11. Group Characteristics).

37. Agenda: What’s Next? Introduction Statistical Process
Site Types and Use Levels
What’s Next?
Notes:

38. What’s Next in this Workshop?
Review Your Forest Site Information and Site Calendars
Change site status as needed (Add newly constructed sites and change others to inactive)
Review Proxy Codes for sites to ensure accuracy
Review and refine use calendars for each site (account for changes in holiday dates and exiting traffic patterns)
Log into NRM and review the site map for each site
Notes:

39. Thank You For participating in the
Visitor Use Monitoring workshop today!
Notes: