Summer crowds: An analysis of USFS campground reservations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT: During the COVID-19 pandemic, US public land managers faced the challenge of catering to large increases in camping demand, while maintaining social distancing guidelines. In this paper, we use multivariate linear regression to analyze weekly changes in reservations to US Forest Service (USFS) campgrounds between 2019 and 2020. The regression models estimate the impact of local COVID infection rates, public health restrictions, and spatial spillovers from proximity to National Parks (NPs), metropolitan areas and wildfire on camping demand. Our sample includes 1,688 individual USFS campgrounds from across the contiguous US. The results illustrate the dramatic increases in camping on USFS land that occurred in the summer of 2020 and demonstrate that increases in local infection rates led to

SUBMITTER: Shartaj M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8754311 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature