Hipcamp is an online company that offers unique outdoor stays via website and mobile app. Visitors can discover and book tent camping, RV parks, cabins, treehouses, and glamping—everywhere from national parks to blueberry farms—all run by private landowners. Hipcamp partnered with Earth Economics to assess the economic impact of Hipcamp properties in Nevada County, California and the environmental benefits of Hipcamp properties within six counties in California, Colorado, and Utah. The result—big gains for the local economy, including an average $886,000 in annual spending for Nevada County, California, and anywhere from $17 million to $1 billion in environmental benefits each year across various counties.
The Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group (HCSEG) spearheads conservation and habitat restoration efforts on the Big Quilcene River, using easements and land acquisition to permanently protect areas of the floodplain and restore the benefits that a more natural floodplain provides. The group commissioned Earth Economics to conduct an analysis of the economic benefits, both market and non-market, of two planned large-scale restoration projects that would reconnect the Big Quilcene River to its historic floodplain.
Two major industries are at the heart of the Lake Chelan Valley economy– agriculture and tourism. Tourism attracts over 2 million visitors annually, with visitors spending an estimated $417 million per year that supports about 5,000 jobs. The Valley’s five golf courses attract tourists from around the world, contributing to the larger tourism economy. The City of Chelan owns and operates the Lake Chelan Golf Course (LCGC), and commissioned Earth Economics to perform a study on the economic impact of this course to better understand its contribution to the regional economy.
Washington’s state parks provide ample benefits to local communities throughout Washington. This report estimates how park visitor spending supports jobs, wages, and taxes throughout Washington, and places a dollar value on the ecosystem services provided by state park lands. The findings of this report are based on 2019 data and provide a strong baseline to measure against as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.
When local governments invest in their parks, they’re investing in more than just community spaces in which residents can exercise, picnic, and unwind. Those investments also support their economy. Our team worked with PROS Consulting, Inc. to provide an economic contribution analysis of the City of Memphis’s investments into their Parks and Neighborhoods Division.
Across Oregon, there are thousands of recreation sites and opportunities to hike, camp, bike, picnic, hunt, kite surf, and more; and each year, billions of dollars are spent by folks enjoying Oregon’s outdoors. Recognizing that outdoor recreation is a major contributor to the state’s economy, Travel Oregon, the Oregon Office of Outdoor Recreation (OREC), and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) united to commission a study on the impacts of the outdoor recreation economy. This study highlights the meaningful contributions of economic impacts generated by Oregonians and visitors that recreate in our vast and abundant outdoors.
In Tacoma, our analysis found that urban heat islands increase maximum temperatures by as much as 6.2 degrees F above the local baseline. Combined with regional climatic effects, neighborhoods in Central and South Tacoma may be as much as 14 degrees F hotter than neighborhoods in North Tacoma. 11,980 people live in neighborhoods where maximum temperature exceed the 90th percentile and where average per capita incomes are less than 200% the federal poverty level.
The Hunts Point community is proactively looking to reintroduce nature-based solutions to help reduce pressing environmental challenges, like persistent flooding, while also providing broad community benefits like access to parks and recreation, better air quality, and protection from extreme heat. Nature-based solutions have proven to be cost-effective for many resilience challenges throughout the world, often providing a high return-on-investment as measured through public and private benefits.
Using the Magic City Innovation District and Little Haiti as a case study, this project examines and raises awareness of the potential environmental and social costs of land use and economic changes associated with re-zoning and urban development. While gentrification of neighborhoods like Little Haiti generate economic benefits for developers and many homeowners and businesses, the costs incurred by low-income communities of color in the form of relocation, increased exposure to climate hazards, and disrupted social networks, are significant and measurable.
The proposed Navigation and Ecosystem Sustainability Programexpansion on the Upper Mississippi River and Illinois Waterwayrepresents an opportunity for the USACE to incorporate ecosystem service values into its analysis so that planning decisions can be made using the most complete information possible. Indeed, including ecosystem service values in economic analyses for this and other future navigation projects offers a monumental opportunity to arrive at win-win solutions that prioritize both the health and productivity of the Mississippi River and the future prosperity of the nation.
