Climate Influences on Day and Overnight Use at California State Beaches and Coastal Parks

Jeffrey S. Jenkins (), Terence G. Young, Alexander M. Petersen, Felber J. Arroyave and Maria E. Medina-Chavarría
Additional contact information
Jeffrey S. Jenkins: Department of Management of Complex Systems, University of California, Merced, CA 95343, USA
Terence G. Young: Department of Geography and Anthropology, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA 91768, USA
Alexander M. Petersen: Department of Management of Complex Systems, University of California, Merced, CA 95343, USA
Felber J. Arroyave: Department of Management of Complex Systems, University of California, Merced, CA 95343, USA
Maria E. Medina-Chavarría: Department of Geography, Rovira i Virgili University, 43480 Vila-seca, Spain

Land, 2025, vol. 14, issue 2, 1-19

Abstract: State beaches and parks provide access to coastal environments for recreational activities that rely on access to the ocean, coastal climate, and scenic amenities. Approximately 46 million people visit state beaches in California annually, and another 20 million people visit other types of state park units located in the Coastal Zone, which together constitute 72% of overall visitation to the state parks system. We utilized monthly attendance estimates available between 2001 and 2020 to assess the influence of extreme drought or wet conditions on visitation to state beaches and coastal parks for day use and overnight use. State beaches include direct access to the ocean for water-dependent recreation activities from swimming to scenery, while coastal park types range from coastal forests to historical sites and may include some ocean access but are not directly dependent on water. State park unit climate conditions were analyzed by coastal region according to seasonal variability between moderate and extreme drought and wet categories using the Palmer Drought Severity Index. We found that visitation to state beaches is more sensitive to climate than coastal parks, particularly during times of extreme drought, and that overall day use visitation is more sensitive to climate than overnight use.

Keywords: state parks; drought; hazards; recreation; coastal tourism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/2/324/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/2/324/ (text/html)

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:gam:jlands:v:14:y:2025:i:2:p:324-:d:1584486

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().