Case study

A US government organization

Performing a recreation study

PA's client, a US government organization, operates a series of hydroelectric dams located on an interconnected system of rivers and lakes in the southern US. The client was proposing to change the operations of these dams for electricity production purposes and needed to file an environmental impact statement (EIS). Recreation is an important component of this type of EIS because it is directly affected by the flow of water through the system.

To fulfill the requirements of the EIS, PA designed and executed a large field study to estimate current recreational use and changes in use that would occur under the client's proposed changes in dam operations. The EIS requirements were particularly challenging: providing in a short timeframe, high-quality, defensible data on a system of 30 reservoirs covering a seven-state area.

PA designed and administered the study, completing surveys with over 7,000 recreational users, using multiple survey methods: on-site roving-access-site surveys, mail surveys, telephone surveys and Web surveys. PA research professionals produced data for four products for the final EIS analysis: an analysis of existing recreation conditions; estimates of the impact on recreation from changing dam operations; data for the economic impact analysis; and results for the EIS sections (recreational use benefits and the economic impacts of recreation on the client's system).