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U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Somerville Lake
: a comparison of use and user patterns at three parks
Comparison of use and user patterns at three parks
x, 62 leaves : illustrations, maps ; 28 cm.
As recreational visitation at United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) projects continue to increase across the nation, it is important for lake managers to understand use and user patterns of park visitors. Such is the case at Somerville Lake. Visitation numbers have gradually risen over the last 5 years and as metropolitan areas continue to increase in size around the lake, this natural resource and recreational opportunity will continue to see an influx of park visitors. It is possible that future demands on these areas could cause lake managers to increase the capacity of previously constructed parks or even create new parks to help meet the growing demand of lake visitation. In order for park managers to create these new areas, they must know the extent of park visitor use and use patterns while visiting the lake. This means data must be collected, analyzed, and interpreted. In 1998, the USACE supported the implementation of a new reservation service that would aide individuals in obtaining a campsite during their visit to Somerville Lake. Attention was drawn to the reservation service by the USACE because of the possibility for providing the knowledge needed to establish use and user patterns of its many visitors. It also has the ability to provide easily usable descriptive information needed to make inferences about recreation use and user patterns. Previously, this data provided by the reservation system had not been used for identifying any use and user patterns in support of park management. This data could and should be useful for creating and adopting new management strategies for the parks. Somerville Lake camping data was obtained from the National Recreation Reservation Service (NRRS) for the study period starting October 1, 2002, and ending September 30, 2003. The 12,412 entries were revised by correcting any misspelled data such as cities and creating new fields such as travel regions and seasons. The data were then examined to obtain baseline information on visitor use and user characteristics. The data were examined for annual and seasonal visitation patterns. Spring, summer, fall, and winter camping parties were primarily from Texas. Most parties from Texas that came during the 4 seasons were primarily from the 0-50 mile and 51-100 mile zones. Out-of-state camping parties, however, were greatest during the winter months. Camping parties tended to be the largest in the spring and summer months and smaller in the winter months. A large percentage of the Winter campers were "snowbirds" from the East-North Central Region of the United States. The majority of camping parties occupied sites that had electric and water hookups and parties that made reservations used the telephone service over making a reservation on the web. A discussion of factors affecting Somerville Lake visitation is included at the end of the paper.
"Major Subject: Natural Resource Development".
Includes bibliographic references (leaf 48).