Impacts of wildfire-season air quality on park and playground visitation in the Northwest United States

Katrina Mullan, Teigan Avery, Patrick Boise, Cindy S. Leary, William L. Rice and Erin O. Semmens

Ecological Economics, 2024, vol. 224, issue C

Abstract: A significant cost of wildfires is the exposure of local and regional populations to air pollution from smoke, which can travel hundreds of miles from the source fire and is associated with significant negative health consequences. Wildfires are increasing in frequency and intensity in the United States, driven by historic fire management approaches and global climate change. These influences will take many decades or longer to reverse, so the main opportunities for mitigating health effects involve minimizing human exposure through changes in behavior or infrastructure. One key recommendation for reducing pollution exposures during wildfire smoke events is to limit time and physical activity outdoors, but there is limited evidence on the extent to which people make this change. We estimate how use of parks and playgrounds changes with air quality during wildfire season in the northwest United States. We find small reductions in park and playground visits on moderately polluted days, and large reductions, to 50–60% of baseline visits, when pollution levels are high. Disaggregating results by neighborhood characteristics, we find a significantly greater behavioral response to moderate levels of air pollution in neighborhoods with higher socio-economic status, although responses to high levels of pollution are similar across neighborhood types.

Keywords: Wildfire; Averting behavior; Open space (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800924001824
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:224:y:2024:i:c:s0921800924001824

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108285

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().