National forests and grasslands provide 177 diverse destinations across the country that offer endless opportunities for enjoying the outdoors with family and friends or on a solitary excursion.

Outdoor recreation amenities attract development, create jobs, and improve local economies, while offering physical, cultural, and spiritual benefits to recreationists. In 2019, 150 million recreation visits to Forest Service lands generated $10.1 billion in local spending and supported 153,800 jobs. Including the related spending within local communities and business-to-business, national forest recreation visits generated $12.5 billion in GDP. Forest Service researchers use both cutting edge and classic methods to inform management and investment decisions to satisfy the changing needs of an expanding, diverse visitor base.

We conduct this research because:

• Understanding our visitors helps us track trends. Scientists track how many people visit national forests, who these visitors are, how they recreate, and their satisfaction with amenities.
• Promoting diversity and inclusion across public lands is an agency goal. Scientists are studying the recreation needs of diverse populations to reduce barriers to access.
• Benefits valued at $15.6 billion in 2019 are distributed widely across visitors, including most of those who travel from nearby communities to spend a day on their local national forest. Scientists developed a protocol to quantify the benefits of recreation visits.
• The climate is changing in ways that limit recreation opportunities. Scientists developed a climate-adapted recreation menu of strategies and approaches for managers to use in building sustainable recreation programs.

Featured Work

• Special Issue of the journal Sustainability, Outdoor recreation, nature-based tourism, and sustainability was co-authored by Forest Service scientists.

• The changing dynamic of Latinx outdoor recreation on national and state public lands study helped identify social, economic, and cultural barriers to participation in recreational activities on national and state public lands faced by Latinxs.