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Outdoor recreation is one of the most popular leisure time activities in the United States, yet the potential impacts of climate change on this activity are largely unknown or poorly understood. We estimate the effect of temperature and precipitation on the demand for a significant segment of the outdoor recreation economy – coastal recreational fishing in the Atlantic and Gulf Coast regions – from 2004-2009. Combining our econometric estimates from a structural model of angler behavior with downscaled climate projections, we find declines in participation (up to 15 percent) and welfare (up to $312 million annually) for recreational anglers primarily due to more days with extreme temperatures under predicted climate futures. We find evidence of regional and temporal heterogeneity, with projected losses in warmer regions and months and gains predicted in cooler regions and months. We then explore inter- and intra-temporal substitution as potential adaptation strategies to extreme heat. While our results show no significant evidence of angler substituting their recreation decisions across times of the year, we do find that anglers might shift their activities to nighttime as temperatures increase rather than fish less frequently., Earlier version (CEnREP Working Paper No. 15-015) is available at https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/264980 but please cite this updated paper.

Management of public lands often involves competing uses and difficult tradeoffs. Here we examine the implications of a direct federal land use conflict in Cape Hatteras National Seashore: off-road vehicle (ORV) access and endangered species protection. Results from a repeated discrete choice model of recreational angler behavior suggest that the economic costs of access restrictions are relatively modest, ranging from $403,000 to $2.07 million annually. Our results provide general support for the National Park Service’s recently implemented ORV management plan, as the upper bound of recreation losses is less than a conservative estimate of the benefits of protecting coastal biodiversity.

PLEASE SEE UPDATED VERSION, CEnREP Working Paper No. 19-016, at https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/283949... This paper estimates the demand for coastal recreational fishing in the Atlantic and Gulf Coast regions of the United States and evaluates the potential welfare implications resulting from climate change. Specifically, we use short-run variability in temperature and precipitation to estimate the effect of weather on participation in shoreline fishing in coastal waters. We then simulate how climate change may impact those choices over time. Parameter estimates are combined with predictions from five global climate models under three emissions scenarios to estimate welfare changes associated with climate change over multiple time horizons. Overall, our results suggest the effects of climate change on shoreline recreational fishing are positive and significant in the long run (2080-2099) with simulation results predicting annual gains of up to $6.83 per trip, or $304 million in the aggregate. The results are decomposed seasonally and regionally to reveal substantial heterogeneity. Welfare gains associated with increasing temperatures in the non-summer months outweigh modest losses in the summer months. The Gulf Coast region has the potential to realize welfare losses, while the Mid-Atlantic and New England are likely to experience welfare gains in all seasons. Of the nearly 45 million annual trips predicted by the model, climate change may increase participation by 0.2 to 2.2 percent in the aggregate. Given the modest negative demand responses in the Gulf and Southeast regions, evidence of adaptation is identified from a model of night fishing. Results suggest that recreational anglers may shift their activities to night as daily high temperatures increase rather than change their participation decision.