Economic impacts of restoration in national parks
Cullinane Thomas C, Van Gilder N, VanMouwerik M. 2019. Economic impacts of restoration in national parks. Natural Resource Report. NPS/NRSS/EQD/NRR—2019/1860. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado
The National Park Service’s (NPS) Resource Protection Branch (RPB) works with parks under the authority of the System Unit Resource Protection Act (SURPA) and the Oil Pollution Act, among others, to conduct damage assessment and restoration activities for NPS resources that have been injured. Funds used for restoration support jobs in local economies across the Nation. This report demonstrates the economic impacts associated with RPB-administered restoration projects through an analysis of small-scale ( $1,000,000 spent per project) projects. Using a national-level economic input-output model, direct and secondary job-years, labor income, value added, and total economic output were estimated for a sample of restoration projects; impacts from these sampled projects were used to estimate average economic-impacts-per-million-dollars-spent on RPB restoration. In 2017 RPB administered 49 small-scale projects; expenditures for these projects ranged in cost from $200 to $800,000 and totaled $1,686,000 ($923,000 in cultural resource projects, $618,000 in natural resource projects, and $145,000 in facilities projects). Based on the economic-impacts-per million estimates, small-scale RPB projects were found to support an estimated total of 29 job-years, $1,963,000 in labor income, $2,690,000 in value added, and $4,458,000 in total economic output within the national economy in 2017. Economic impacts were also calculated for two large-scale projects: one a $3,900,000 (2017$) hillside stabilization project and the other a $5,574,000 (2017$) ferries (two) fabrication project.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Cullinane Thomas, Catherine; Van Gilder, Noah; VanMouwerik, Mark
- Date of Issue
- 2019-01
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- EQD , NRSS
- Keywords
- economic impacts, economic output, ferries, Grand Ditch, Gulf Islands National Seashore, hillside stabilization, job-years, labor income, Resource Protection Branch, restoration, restoration projects, Rocky Mountain National Park, SURPA, value added