Water-based recreation management: a normative approach to reviewing boating thresholds

Riungu GK, Hallo JC, Backman KF, Brownlee M, Beeco JA, Larson LR. 2020. Water-based recreation management: a normative approach to reviewing boating thresholds. Lake Reserv Manage. 36:139–154. Recreational boating is one of the major water-based recreation activities in the United States. Multiple public natural lakes and rivers are used for boating, but these waterways are a limited natural resource. The building of dams and their associated reservoirs have increased opportunities for boating, but even these areas at times remain quite crowded. In order to ensure that both resource and experiential capacities are not exceeded, density-related thresholds for boating, measured in surface acres of water per watercraft, need to be determined. Despite thresholds specifying the minimum acceptable conditions for boating, agencies managing waterways often apply thresholds that are not site-specific or evidence-based, and fail to solicit input from the public. Therefore, thresholds for boating capacity vary widely. Social norms have been widely applied in park and outdoor recreation management, and hence are likely to enhance the consistency, objectivity, and accuracy of estimation of boating capacity and the utilization of this capacity. This study applied normative approaches to estimate utilization of boating amenities and to update boating thresholds at 2 reservoirs in Washington State. Additionally, the study found visitors’ perceived level of crowding was a significant predictor of their perceptions of safety and security at both reservoirs. Therefore, there is a safety-related need for waterway managers to determine and implement crowding-based boating thresholds derived from visitor perceptions.