The Effects of Climate Change on Outdoor Recreation Participation in the United States: Projections for the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

Climate change is expected to impact individuals’ recreation choices, as changing temperatures and precipitation patterns influence participation in outdoor recreation and alternative activities. This paper empirically investigates the relationship between weather and outdoor recreation using nationally representative data from the contiguous United States. We find that across most outdoor recreation activities, participation is lowest on the coldest days [<35°F (1.7°C)] and highest at moderately high temperatures [80°–90°F (27°–32°C)]. Notable exceptions to this trend include water sports and snow and ice sports, for which participation peaks at the highest and lowest temperatures, respectively. If individuals continue to respond to temperature changes the same way that they have in the recent past, in a future climate that has fewer cool days and more moderate and hot days, our model anticipates net participation across all outdoor recreation activities will increase by 88 million trips annually at 1°C of warming (CONUS) and by up to 401 million trips at 6°C of warming, valued between $3.2 and $15.6 billion in consumer surplus annually (2010 population). The increase in trips is driven by participation in water sports; excluding water sports from future projections decreases the consumer surplus gains by approximately 75% across all modeled degrees of warming. If individuals in northern regions respond to temperature like people in southern regions currently do (a proxy for adaptation), total outdoor recreation trips will increase by an additional 17% in comparison with no adaptation at 6°C of warming. This benefit is generally not seen at lower degrees of warming.