The effectiveness of visitation proxy variables in improving recreation use estimates for the USDA Forest Service

In estimating recreation visitation at the National Forest level in the US, annual counts of a number of types of visitation proxy measures were used. The intent was to improve the overall precision of the visitation estimate by employing the proxy counts. The precision of visitation estimates at sites that had proxy information versus those that did not is examined. Results show that using visitation proxy information reduces sampling needs by about 25%. Characteristics of the types of visitation proxy information that performed best and worst are discussed.