With more than 300 million visitors annually, protecting and preserving the423 national parks, monuments, and scenic lands that make up the US National Park System is no small undertaking. It is a balancing act between providing an enjoyable experience for visitors today and preserving the natural environment and cultural heritage for generations to come. This is the primary mission of the National Parks Service (NPS). It is also at the core of what Chad Weiser, PLA does every day at Otak as the firm’s Federal Practice Leader.
A professional landscape architect by trade, Chad was drawn to Otak’s interdisciplinary approach to working with clients when he joined the firm in 1999. “When I first came to Otak, I was a project manager in the Planning and Landscape Group. Over time, my role grew and eventually ventured into working on a lot of federal work,” Chad states. “I have enjoyed the evolution, but being able to work with all the disciplines at Otak has made my work that much more interesting. To be able to work with civil engineers, structural engineers, and architects and bring all of those pieces together to do great work for our clients has been very rewarding,” he adds.
His longevity at Otak has not only allowed Chad to work with all of the different disciplines, but has given him a broad knowledge base and the ability to translate structural, architectural, and civil engineering data for clients. He explains that “the key is being able to understand the important elements of all of the different disciplines and how they come together, and distilling it down for a client so they can make the decisions that will make their project successful.”
Early in his career, Chad had the opportunity to work directly for the NPS, overseeing construction on various projects and acting as a liaison between contractors and NPS design teams. His background and familiarity with the challenges faced by the NPS have been an asset as Chad and other leaders at Otak have been helping the NPS withvisitor use studies and restoration projects at a number of sites. “The challenge we have on every project,” Chad explains “is to find the right balance between the visitor experience and preservation. Sometimes we’re needing to think about expanding a footprint of a developed area, but doing it in a way that will have minimal impacts, both to cultural and natural resources.”
Mount Rushmore Facilities Improvements ProjectNOCA Stehekin Fire Facilities
Notable projects Chad and his team have been working on include facilities improvements and renovations at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, campground rehabilitation at Yosemite National Park, and new wildland fire facilities in North Cascades National Park. Chad cites the Yosemite campground project as a prime example of balancing the user experience with the need to preserve and protect the environment. “This was a 300-unit historic campground that was very tired and in need of a lot of updates. We provided the design for the campground renovation, which included updating the amenities at each campsite, as well relocating twenty of the campsites away from a sensitive river corridor and building a new access road to those sites,” Chad explains.
Chad is also spearheading projects in coordination with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, The US Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. He sums up working with the NPS and other federal agencies as a process of finding creative solutions to challenging problems and doing it in a way that everyone feels heard and understood. “We are often working with teams from multiple departments—from cultural interpreters and rangers to operations, maintenance, and law enforcement—and they all come with a different perspective and a different area of focus. They all need to be heard and they all need to feel the solution we’re coming up with meets their needs and expectations.” He adds that “it can be challenging at times, but we’ve become very good at putting all the pieces together, balancing all the different demanding needs, finding solutions and getting them implemented.”
Looking to the future, Chad and the rest of the team are most excited about theGreat American Outdoors Act. Passed in 2020, the Act provides critical funding to address the significantmaintenance backlog of deteriorating facilities within the National Park Service as well as other federal land management agencies. “There’s going to be a lot of work for us to help the NPS implement projects, and it will be a lasting legacy for the next 50 to 100 years and we get to be part of it,” Chad says enthusiastically.
Enacted in 1968, the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System (WSR Act) has safeguarded rivers with outstanding natural, cultural, and recreational values. The WSR Act also provides a framework for river use planning and management by federal and state agencies. As we celebrate National Rivers Month, Bill Valliere, Otak Research Analyst and member of Otak’s new Visitor Use Planning & Management (VUPM) team reflects on how his group’s work is aiding comprehensive river management plans and protecting national rivers.
While the team itself is new, their body of work is not. For example, Bill, and Steve Lawson, VUPM Director, have been working together on and off since 1999 on issues surrounding visitor use, management, and planning for outdoor recreation spaces—specifically with regard to how many people can visit natural places without either the experience or the resources being degraded. “Steve and I first met and worked on a project in Yosemite National Park that was eventually part of the Merced River comprehensive management planning. It was a very controversial, and complicated procedure, but it was ultimately successful,” Bill states, “More recently, we’ve been working with the U.S. Forest Service on some of their rivers that are in need of comprehensive river management plans.”
Otak’s VUPM team is dedicated to analyzing, modeling, and planning for visitation levels and patterns within the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, national parks, protected areas, and a wide variety of buildings and public spaces. Bill and the rest of the team offer a specific set of skills and expertise that public agencies typically do not have on staff but are critical to effective planning and use management. In the case of wild and scenic rivers, the VUPM team will be able to help ease a backlog of work.
Every river that is designated as a wild and scenic river needs to have a comprehensive management plan within three years of designation. Bill points out that “some of those rivers have gone beyond the three years and the Forest Service is trying to make up ground on the backlog of rivers that need to have these plans in place.” In this regard, the team will work primarily on the portion of those plans that deal with visitor use management and visitor capacity, providing key data on how many people specific river corridors can accommodate without degrading the wild and scenic designation values.
Photo simulation used for a study on the Merced River.
Through various studies, the VUPM team estimates the numeric capacities required by law. The team does not stop there, though. “We also provide strategies and tactics that managers may use to actually reduce impacts to the resources and potentially increase capacity,” Bill states. Trail design, access points, and other river features are brought into consideration with specific recommendations. “It’s a balancing act and we are often weighing different aspects of the river itself and the corridor to figure out where that capacity should be drawn from. A river may be designated because it holds a variety of outstandingly remarkable value, including recreation, wildlife, geology, or hydrology—there are a variety of values for which a river may actually be recognized. And those are the values we have to protect or improve upon.”
The capacity portion of the management plans is often a challenging part of the planning process for a given wild and scenic river. As one of the few firms providing visitor use and planning services of this nature, Otak is uniquely positioned to fill the gap with the expertise of its VUPM team who have been solving capacity and land use issues for more than 20 years. Bill and the team are excited about the work they are now able to do together and the impact they can have helping to protect our conserved spaces. “We want to help these land use and planning agencies be able to get those plans done so that they’re in compliance with the law and better manage the resources for present and future generations.”
Outdoor recreation in America is booming. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that the outdoor recreation economy accounted for 2.1% of the gross domestic product (GDP) for 2019 and all estimates indicate the next report will only grow that number. And it’s no wonder—spending time outdoors has proven to have both physical and mental health benefits and, during the pandemic, proved to be one of the few activities we could still enjoy.
But the number of people swarming into parks has a downside that a team from Otak is directly addressing with the goal of keeping open spaces truly open, enjoyable, and safe, while also protecting natural resources.
Otak has a long history of working with the National Park Service to both improve visitor experiences and safety, while also protecting natural, cultural, and historical resources. Through this work, we have witnessed the tremendous benefits people experience from being in national parks, but also the toll of high visitor use on parks and open spaces. Recognizing a pressing need as park usage continues to rise, in March of 2021 Otak brought on a team of social scientists, based in New England, to expand the focus of our projects through the lens of minimizing overcrowding, creating more efficient people movement, and ensuring safe opportunities for park visitors. The team, comprised of Steve Lawson, director of Visitor Use Planning and Management, and research analysts Abbie Larkin, Bill Valliere, and Annie Engen, has been working together for many years and collectively have vast amounts of experience working on both high-profile projects from Arches National Park to Mt. Everest, to smaller town parks.
The popularity of outdoor recreation has skyrocketed putting a strain on natural resources.
The team had collaborated with Otak on several occasions which sparked the eventual hirings, an effort that was led by Mandi Roberts, Vice President and Principal at Otak who comments,
“By bringing this experienced and talented team into the fold of Otak, we are able to offer an even greater breadth and depth of services to clients, and in particular for the NPS, where social science and visitor use studies are needed on a constant basis. Our team is ready to assist in developing the best solutions for current and future generations of visitors and stewards of our cherished landscapes and settings in America.”
Visitor Use Planning and Management
As more people visit parks, there is increasing pressure on park resources that impacts the quality and character of visitors’ experiences and the overall perception of parks. Learning to identify problems and develop the tools and strategies to minimize impacts is critical to the sustainability of the parks and is the exact focus of this new Otak team. “We provide a data-driven basis for decisions on managing people and protecting the parks, while also providing outstanding experiences to all visitors,” Steve says.
Steve explains that his work involves social sciences, systems modeling, natural resource economics, and park and wilderness management. “I have been applying these skills and training for about 25 years to design and conduct social science research for the National Park Service (NPS) and other recreation resource managers. Our team provides NPS and others with information about who does and does not visit parks, what motivates them to come to parks, and what they do when they visit. We help build a data-driven understanding of visitor perceptions, preferences, and tolerances for park conditions and attitudes and opinions about how to manage use for public enjoyment and resource protection,” he says.
The work Steve and his team conduct requires analysis and modeling of visitor use and patterns. They use survey research and descriptive data collection including GPS and passive mobile data, automated counts of traffic and trail use, and observation studies of the number of people and types of activities and behaviors. The gathered data is used to develop insights about the relationships in parks among the amounts and types of visitor use, the quality and character of visitors’ experiences, and the conditions of park resources.
Case Study: Yosemite National Park Half Dome
Yosemite National Park proved to be a case study on how to better manage visitors through a reservation system.
Steve was instrumental on an NPS project at Yosemite National Park where he was commissioned to study visitor use, crowding, and safety on one of the park’s most popular and iconic hikes, Half Dome. On the last leg of the hike, hikers scale a granite face using handrails that were originally bolted into place in the early 1900s by the Sierra Club. As the hike gained in popularity, the lines for the cables grew and visitors began to make the risky decision to scale outside of the cable area to circumvent crowds and get to the summit faster. These issues drew increasing attention in the press and increasing concern from park managers who decided it was time to address the problem.
Steve and his team conducted a multi-year study where they developed a simulation model of the number of total visitors on the hike, the number of visitors on the cables at one time, as well as the number of visitors going outside the cables and exposing themselves to greater risk. The findings became a primary basis for the Half Dome Stewardship Plan Permit System where the park now manages how many visitors it can sustain at one time and issues the corresponding number of permits per day. As Steve explains, “This became a precedent-setting example of how to effectively and proactively manage visitor use in popular outdoor recreation settings.” The Half Dome permit system “provided for other park managers to acknowledge there are limits to the amount of use that can be sustained beyond which the fundamental values of these areas can be compromised.”
The results of this project were widely published to provide an evidence-based solution to decision-makers who could point to peer-reviewed science as a basis for management decisions. In addition, the project increased awareness of the potential problems in parks.
Long lines waiting to summit Yosemite’s iconic Half Dome created a dangerous situation.
Precedent-Setting Management
Reservation systems are becoming a part of the landscape and conversation in places where they may be needed. The idea is not to “lock people out” but rather to maximize the opportunities for people to experience these places while at the same time protecting park resources.
Steve explains that in places he’s worked where reservation systems have been assessed or implemented, it is possible in some of those cases to accommodate more visitors while still protecting the environment, by virtue of a proactive management system. Parks data demonstrate recreational use is inherently concentrated in time and space, and use generally has seasonal, daily, and hourly peaks “That leaves a lot of potential opportunity on the table to help disperse and manage peak use, but if you passively allow visitation patterns to persist, you may not be making the most of the resources,” he says.
The permit system at Half Dome was a precedent-setting decision by the Park Service as one of the most prominent locations to manage day use. It has led other parks to consider and implement day-use management with reservation systems in national parks such as California’s Muir Woods and Maine’s Acadia National Park as well as popular state hiking trails across the country. Steve explains, “All of the work is structured around a framework that is applicable to each and every kind of place. It’s a sliding scale of analysis. Arches, for example, is at the high end of the scale where decisions should be supported with a data-driven and peer-reviewed basis. But we also work through general legal requirements for use management plans where the use is maybe not intense but nonetheless, there are requirements to have a use plan. In some of these cases, we are at the lower end of the sliding scale of analysis, where extensive data and analysis are not necessary or feasible.” He adds that the approach and level of investment are context-dependent but the management framework that he and his team use applies universally to parks, protected areas, and tourist destinations.
Prior to the pandemic, Steve was invited to Nepal to present his findings to the managers of Mt. Everest, a site challenged by the impacts and risks of overuse. Compounding the problem for the managers is the need to overcome the stigma that quotas will limit tourism to an area where peoples’ livelihood relies heavily on tourism dollars. Steve felt he was making headway to help Nepal develop strategies for sustainable tourism management before the pandemic put this work on hold.
The pandemic exacerbated the issues and challenges in natural areas that are facing higher and higher levels of visitation. The boom in outdoor recreation has shone a light on how critically important the role of parks and recreation are to our society and how much that use needs to be sustainable to ensure what we love about parks today remains for generations. With Otak’s new team in place, we stand ready to help park managers achieve balance in welcoming all visitors and providing enriching experiences while ensuring park resources are protected.
The Organic Act requires the National Park Service (NPS) to provide for the enjoyment of current and future generations. The NPS Social Science Program supports research to gain an understanding of dimensions of enjoyment and public appreciation through the study of humans and their interactions with NPS services, sites and facilities. An interdisciplinary team led by Otak, Inc. was recently awarded a nationwide contract with the NPS Social Science Program to provide visitor surveys, visitor use and transportation studies, and other socioeconomic research and analytic task orders that will assist parks with ongoing planning and management to serve visitors’ needs. With key partners RRC Associates of Boulder, CO, and the Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research (ITRR) in the College of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Montana, along with multiple other subcontracting partners, the team will be on-call to the NPS for the next five years to a maximum contract level of $40 million.
“Our team is honored and excited to be selected to support the NPS in its ongoing mission to preserve the natural and cultural resources and values of the national park system for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations,” said Mandi Roberts. Mandi will serve as the overall contract manager for the team, and she brings a strong commitment to stewardship and supporting America’s treasured National Park System, with more than 20 years of working with the NPS on a wide variety of task orders across the US. “One of our first assignments under this new contract will be conducting a visitor survey for Zion National Park, where I have worked on previous transportation-related studies. Zion continues to experience heavy visitor use, particularly related to the popular shuttle through Zion Canyon. The results of the visitor survey work at Zion will help inform core issues of visitor use management, management solutions, and to develop a current and deeper understanding of who visits Zion National Park, what they do during their visit, and their spending profile.”
Otak, RRC, ITRR and our other team members bring unique qualifications and strengths including management of NPS task orders and completion of tourism and recreation research across the country for decades. According to Jeremy Sage, ITRR Associate Director, “This contract is an opportunity to assist the NPS with a variety of issues, such as addressing crowding and congestion to improve visitor experience and access; helping to identify staffing needs and management strategies; and quantifying the positive economic impacts the parks have on local economies. We are excited to work with this stellar team to bring new and creative research methods and analyses.”
These creative approaches will be applied for task orders under a variety of project types:
Understanding in-park visitor use to allow land managers to make better decisions on visitor experiences and the protection of resources.
Investigating personnel and partner studies of internal agency and department issues from federal staff comprised within and with partners.
Assessing regional economic impact and economic welfare studies that include cost/benefit and regulatory flexibility analyses, willingness to pay and visitor spending profile estimates.
Studying recreation, transportation and carrying capacity issues including visitor movement, travel pattern studies, visitor use level estimation and evaluations of conditions with how they change over time and under various use levels.
Conducting non-visitor studies to look at visitor displacement and awareness of people in gateway communities and regional stakeholders, and studies of potential future visitors to assist in future management decisions.
The trio of Otak, RRC, and ITRR worked together on a large visitor study to better understand the visitor experience given varying congestion levels at sites in Yellowstone National Park. “Our unique approach in Yellowstone of using geofence technology to better understand the visitor experience in real-time provided managers with broad decision-making capabilities not possible in past research. We’re thrilled to be able to continue assisting NPS units across the country protect their vital resources and continue providing high-quality experiences through innovative research.” said Jake Jorgenson, Lead Analyst of RRC Associates.“The NPS is excited to work with this extensive team of subject matter experts to inform the variety of socioeconomic and natural resource data and analytic needs for our parks and programs. This contract will significantly contribute to data-driven decision making across the bureau,” said Bret Meldrum, NPS Social Science Program Chief.
The five-year contract will be served through a collaborative approach between Otak, RRC, and ITRR, as well as team members around the country that include academic partners who lead research at the University of Montana’s College of Business, Department of Mathematics, and the W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation and other academic researchers from Utah State University, Oregon State University, University of Colorado, Kansas State University, University of Florida, University of Georgia, University of Maine, and Virginia Polytechnic University. Collaborative business partners nationwide include Bioeconomics and Global Parks Solutions both from Missoula, MT; NatureWerks, LLC from Minneapolis, MN; Agnew: Beck Consulting from Anchorage, AK; EPS from Oakland, CA; Fehr & Peers from offices throughout the US; New Line Consulting from Gallatin Gateway, MT; Evermost from Kirkland, WA; Industrial Economics from Cambridge, MA; Kirk Value Planners from Goodyear, AZ; OmniTrak Group from Honolulu, HA; NeoTreks from Castle Rock, CO; and L2 Data Collection from Boise, ID and Salt Lake City, UT.
For Otak, the NPS is a cornerstone client. “The culture and values of the NPS and those of our firm are closely aligned,” said Chad Weiser, Otak’s Federal Practice Leader, “through a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach, we analyze, plan, and design the best solutions for each unique park setting. Our teams focus on being thorough, diligent, and responsive in serving the needs of the NPS, whether for research and studies or for design and construction.”
Image Credits:
Image 1: Yellowstone Geyser/US National Park Service
Image 2: Yellowstone Geyser/Neal Herbert for the US National Park Service
Header: Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial/Rachel Hendrix for the US National Park Service
Times are challenging as we all face the impacts of COVID-19. But as our day to day lives have been disrupted, mother nature continues on unabated. Flowers have come up, migrating birds have returned, and temperatures are rising.
In recognition of all that nature provides, Earth Day is celebrated throughout April. While this year there won’t be group events as we practice social distancing, Otak is still taking this time to celebrate the great outdoors.
Otak has again signed on as a business partner for Earth Day Oregon to recognize, support and celebrate our planet and those organizations that work hard every day for our natural world. Through Earth Day Oregon, Otak donated to Depave, a nonprofit that works to turn paved spaces into greenspaces to create more livable cities. We understand the environmental and social benefits greenspace can have and gladly stand behind and have volunteered for the many projects Depave has undertaken to green the landscape of Portland. We look forward to working together with Depave on its next project.
On the homefront, Otak’s GO Committee and Operations Team remind us that Earth Day is really every day and there are things we can do in our daily lives to get back to nature.
Start a small garden. You can build raised beds in your yard, or simply pot some herbs and veggies to grow on your porch.
Bike and walk more. Do you live near your local grocery store? Consider if it is possible to walk or bike for your next trip to the store (while following proper PPE and social distancing guidelines). A win-win for getting outside and getting your essential errands done.
Start a home compost. Many of us are already doing this. Check-in with your local trash service to see if they offer compost pick up. If not and if space allows, you can start composting in your backyard by purchasing something like a “Bio Monster” or “Worm Factory” bin and use the compost for your garden.
Shop locally, eat seasonally. With stay-at-home orders in place during the opening weeks for farmers’ markets, your local market or farm might be offering pick-up or delivery!
Play Earth Day Bingo! Get the family involved in this great activity from the City of Kirkland.
Getting outside is one of the recommendations for keeping COVID-19 at bay, as well as a way to maintain your mental health. We want our employees to stay healthy so we encourage you to get out and show your love for the planet, on earth day and every day!
A visitor use planning process focused on nine sites at Lake Roosevelt (NRA) aims to enhance visitor experiences while protecting natural and cultural resources.
A Roadmap for Preservation and Capital Improvements
For these specific sites (Evans, Marcus Island, Kettle Falls, Gifford, Hunters, Fort Spokane, Keller Ferry, Spring Canyon, and Porcupine), the Otak team is analyzing appropriate functions for facilities (campgrounds, boat launches, and day use areas) and developing conceptual plans for widespread improvements. The project supports the visitor use planning and management process by assessing visitor use patterns and analyzing connections between sites, use types, site resources, and facilities. The plan establishes a consistent, unified character for development and serve as a roadmap to guide decisions on capital improvements, preservation, and development.
As one of the most visited areas of Grand Teton National Park, the Snake River is renowned for its accessibility to various outdoor recreation activities such as fishing and float trips. Between aging structures and damage to local ecology as a result of visitor use, Snake River in Grand Teton National Park sought to improve its two of its primary access points (Pacific Creek and Moose Landing) and add new access just below Jackson Lake Dam. This Otak multidisciplinary approach would assess the scenic waterway to maintain its integrity, update water access points and expand in scope to include new visitor facilities.
Improved Visitor Use Meets Waterway Integrity
Over time, changing visitor use patterns and deteriorating water access points began to negatively impact the area’s riparian ecosystem as well as Snake River’s overall visitor experience. Improvements at Snake River focus on enhancing the visitor experience and sustainability of its facilities. Geomorphic and hydraulic assessments helped determine optimal site locations, design concepts, and characterization of fluvial hazards at the proposed sites. These studies determined the current trajectory of the channel as well as potential risks to any new investments in infrastructure along the river. The design created sufficient parking, hardened facilities to keep visitors out of sensitive areas as well as new fishing platforms, shade structure, restrooms and boat ramps to make recreational use safer and more accessible.
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Start a home compost.
