Injuries in commercial whitewater rafting on the New and Gauley rivers of West Virginia.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the rates, patterns, and likelihood of injuries in commercial whitewater rafting on the New and Gauley rivers, West Virginia. METHODS: Standardized injury report forms developed by the West Virginia Whitewater Commission were reviewed for years 2005-2010 to provide a statistical account of injuries reported by licensed commercial rafting outfitters operating on the New and Gauley rivers. RESULTS: Overall, musculoskeletal injuries (sprains/strains, 21.1%; dislocations, 13.8%; fractures, 12.2%) comprised the majority (47.4%) of incidents followed by injuries to soft tissue (lacerations, 29.0%; abrasions, 13.3%; contusions, 2.3%). Almost one half (44.3%) of injuries were to the head, neck, and shoulders followed by the lower extremities (foot/ankle/leg/knee/hip, 33.9%) and upper extremities (hand/wrist/arm, 14.3%). Data analyzed using the Somers' D statistic revealed the likelihood of an injury occurring inside the raft is P = .55, and P = .39 when passengers are ejected from the raft into the river. The most likely injuries to occur to passengers are a laceration (P = .51) or a sprain (P = .20). The main probabilities for the risks of injuries were found to be to the head (P = .24), shoulder (P = .16), and face (P = .13) of the passenger. CONCLUSIONS: By knowing what injuries are common, their likelihood of occurrence, and the settings in which they happen, commercial outfitters can initiate practices to reduce injury rates.

Ecological settings and state economies as factor inputs in the provision of outdoor recreation.

State parks play a substantial role in the provision of outdoor recreation opportunities within the United States. Park operators must make crucial decisions in how they allocate capital expenditures, labor, and parkland to maintain recreation opportunities. Their decisions are influenced, in part, by the ecological characteristics of their state's park system as well as the vitality of their state's economy. In this research, we incorporate the characteristics of states' ecosystems and their local economies into a formal production analysis of the states' park systems from the years 1986 to 2011. Our analysis revealed all three factors of production were positive and inelastic. Expenditures on labor had the largest effect on both park utilization and operational expenditures. Our analysis also found a large degree of variability in the effects of ecological characteristics on both utilization and operating expenditures. Parkland utilization and operational expenditures were more elastic in areas such as Oceania and Mediterranean California relative to other ecological regions. These findings lead us to conclude that state park operators will experience variable levels of difficulty in both accommodating increasing demands for recreation from state parks and maintaining the existing quality of outdoor recreation provided within their system.

A nationwide production analysis of state park attendance in the United States.

This study examined the production of U.S. states' park visits from 1984 to 2010 by state. In specifying the production equation in terms of the influences of the states' parklands, labor, and capital investments on the annual attendances, we found that state governments will experience an ongoing need for more labor to maintain their parklands if attendance is to increase in the future. Results also indicated that more capital expenditures are not likely to increase park utilization rates. Post-estimation procedures involved the application of the response residuals to identify the capacity utilization rates of the states' park systems over the past 27 years. Past utilization rates revealed operators met or exceeded capacity utilization expectations from 1984 through 1990. However, beginning in 1991, the annual mean utilization rate for the nation's supply of states' parks signaled a trend toward excess capacity. Our forecast revealed the mean utilizations over the next three years will vary between 90% and 95%. Post-estimation procedures also examined the relationship between state park management orientations (towards either public-lands preservation or recreational development) and projected annual capacity utilization rates. Results indicate that the quantity of added facilities to broaden their appeal to the public (i.e., a recreation orientation) was not important in explaining utilization capacities. However, an orientation toward public-lands preservation related significantly to greater utilization rates. In our view, the public will continue to accept current cost structures for continued operations of the states' parks on the compelling need for access to outdoor recreation to contribute to the visitor well-being.