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Little is known about the effect of future weather and climate on municipal water demand in coastal communities with tourist-centric economies. To address this knowledge gap, we used an econometric model of monthly water demand that allowed for non-linear responses to weather variables to estimate temperature-response functions for demand from a sample of communities in the Oregon Mid-Coast. A main result is that local temperature was not a significant driver of variability in monthly water demand but that temperature in the Willamette Valley—the source of most tourists to the Oregon coast—was. We assumed that the increase in demand in response to higher Willamette Valley temperature arose from an increase in tourists escaping the heat in the Willamette Valley for cooler conditions on the coast. Applying the temperature response functions to scenarios of future climate to the year 2070 led to projected increases in water demand independent of other factors. Whether future tourism is either constrained by the local resident population that serves tourism or is constrained by the potential tourist population in the Willamette Valley, the climate-change contribution to projected water demand is generally of comparable magnitude to—if not greater than—the contribution from resident population change alone over the next 50 years. For communities where the population is projected to decline, the climate effect may more than offset the effect of declining population, resulting in a net positive change in demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managed retreat is a climate adaptation strategy involving government buyouts of at-risk properties that is currently underutilized in coastal areas of the United States. These programs often require both voluntary homeowner applications and municipal government support for a successful buyout. We use a conceptual framework and a set of empirical models with data from a buyout program in a coastal state to develop descriptive evidence on potential barriers to successful managed-retreat policies in high-risk coastal areas. Key factors influencing buyout success can be associated with municipal budgets, including revenues, expenditures, debt, and government transfers. Importantly, revenue impacts related to property taxes appear to contribute to fewer buyouts, suggesting a potential principal-agent problem related to climate resilience in high-value coastal housing markets. Recognition of the combination of factors that may represent barriers to adoption may help the design and implementation of future programs and improve coastal climate adaptation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public lands in the United States have recently experienced significant increases in visitation. Journalists and park managers suggest Instagram is a primary reason. We explore this issue in the Oregon state park system by combining visitation data with park-specific georeferenced content and engagement indicators from Instagram. Using several empirical specifications, we show suggestive evidence that Instagram is not likely correlated to increased visitation everywhere; rather, it is only in a few locations generating high user participation within the app. We find no contemporary effect and a positive association with cumulative Instagram engagement indicators on visits at this subset of parks. (JEL Q26, Q56) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]