Coordinating and Standardizing Outdoor Recreation Supply and Demand Databases to Facilitate Management and Promote Conservation, Health, and Accessibility

Recreation opportunities exist as a system at multiple scales. They are offered by a variety of public and private recreation providers sometimes with different objectives. Incremental and disparate planning across providers can lead to mismatched supply and demand, inefficient use of resources, and difficulty responding to emerging trends. Furthermore, traditional recreation supply and demand studies haven't systematically integrated many recreation land management benefits including biodiversity and wildlife conservation, ecosystem services, human health, and environmental justice. Historically, the supply of outdoor recreation and conservation lands was assembled by different governmental and tribal agencies, non-governmental organizations, or private organizations with little systematic coordination. The USGS Protected Area Database (PAD-US) has emerged as a model for coordinated inventories of public lands. This program has developed a standardized data set with consistent protocols and methodologies for data collection to ensure consistency of inputs and future updates. Demand assessments are currently conducted by federal and state governmental agencies, industry associations, and universities. These studies are independently conducted, rarely comparable, and largely inconsistent across scales and locations. Initiated in 1960, what became the National Survey of Recreation and the Environment (NSRE) collected consistent public recreation demand data for state and national level analysis. Many recreation planners used these data until it was discontinued in 2014. While there has been coordination and standardization of recreation supply data collection, no similar actions have occurred for demand. Following the PAD-US supply-side model, we identify opportunities to coordinate and standardize the collection of recreation demand data to be useful for all agencies, across ownerships, and scales. A publicly available national recreation demand database with standardized protocols and methodologies could serve as a comprehensive and authoritative inventory of recreation demand. A new integrated and holistic NSRE and new standardized baseline demand portion of all Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plans could recurrently contribute to the national database. A holistic systems approach could help to link local recreation supply and demand opportunities, frame recreation access and participation with health and equity data, and gauge supply and demand for wildlife and biodiversity conservation and other ecosystem services on recreation lands.