With a growing reputation for research on environmental policy, WYSAC recently conducted a series of projects funded by the National Park Service (NPS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and the Interior, as well as Canada’s national parks agency and its science council. Building on earlier work for Wyoming’s Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources and for Rocky Mountain National Park, these latest projects have produced WYSAC’s first-ever nationwide surveys of the U.S. population.
After twelve months in the field, in the spring of 2009 WYSAC’s Survey Research Center (SRC) finished data collection for the NPS Comprehensive Survey of the American Public. SRC personnel completed more than 4100 telephone interviews spread across the seven NPS regions, using random digit dialing on both landline and cell phone samples. Analyzing the data for reports on the public’s opinions about NPS services will continue through 2010. Principal Investigator (PI) on the project is Patricia Taylor, a UW Professor and WYSAC Faculty Affiliate. Executive Director Burke Grandjean and SRC Manager Bistra Anatchkova are Co-PIs.
Also this spring, WYSAC submitted a final report to the EPA on the public’s “willingness to pay” to reduce air pollution in national parks. The study compared different modes of survey administration (telephone, mail, and Internet). More than 333o people responded to three nearly identical national surveys fielded by WYSAC during 2008. Grandjean, Taylor, and Assistant Research Scientist Nanette Nelson served as Co-PIs on this project.
In another willingness-to-pay study, WYSAC participated in a five-year investigation about aquatic invasive species, funded by NSF and its counterpart in Canada. Economics Professor Jason Shogren was PI on the UW part of this multi-university project. The SRC convened two focus groups in the summer of 2006 to help construct the questionnaire and then conducted a mail survey with more than 2400 respondents nationwide.
In 2005-06, WYSAC’s first willingness-to-pay inquiry helped U.S. land management agencies determine the price of a national pass for federal recreational lands. Selected for the work in a national competition, WYSAC conducted focus groups in six states, completed more than 3700 telephone interviews nationwide, and submitted a detailed report that was used by the agencies in setting the price of the new pass when it went on sale in 2007. The U.S. Department of the Interior nominated WYSAC’s project for the 2008 Policy Impact Award of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, a nomination that was also endorsed by the Canadian national parks agency. Co-PI’s were Taylor and Associate Professor David Aadland; Anatchkova managed the survey work. The project team also included Grandjean and Sjogren.
The project that laid the foundation for WYSAC’s participation in all of these national studies was a visitor-intercept survey at Rocky Mountain National Park, conducted over a twelve month period in 2003-04. More than 1200 face-to-face interviews were completed by SRC personnel and park volunteers, trained and supervised by Taylor (the project’s PI). The results are helping park managers to understand the effects that the expanding urban population near the park’s boundaries has on park resources and on visitor experiences.
In another park-specific effort, this summer WYSAC received a planning grant from UW’s National Parks Research Center for an evaluation of the “Be Bear Aware” program in Grand Teton National Park. A central focus of that program is to strengthen the understanding of park visitors about proper food storage. Taylor and Nelson are the Co-PIs.
For WYSAC, these diverse environmental projects represent an important research area. As Taylor summarizes, “Wyoming contains America’s first national park (Yellowstone), first national monument (Devils Tower), and first national forest (Shoshone). So it’s especially satisfying that WYSAC has been chosen to conduct these crucial studies.”