Reservoir fishing benefits across Tennessee regions

This research attempted to place a dollar value on reservoir sport fishing in Tennessee. The travel cost method of valuing non-market goods was utilized to estimate the Marshallian consumer surplus associated with a change in site quality. The sites used in this thesis include those reservoirs located in the state of Tennessee which surveyed license holders reported making visits to in 1992. Data on water quality and angler behavior was used to estimate a visitation demand function. A measure of economic welfare could be determined from a imposed site quality change by measuring the consumer surplus associated with the quality change.

Of particular interest, was the effects of water quality changes in different regions of the state. To observe this, the state was divided in to regions based on two strategies. The first strategy divided the state into four regions based on established regions designated by The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. The second strategy was developed based on where the users of each reservoir were traveling from. This strategy revealed three distinct regions based on use and were termed user regions accordingly.

A second goal of this research was to evaluate the transferability of benefits estimated at one site to another. This procedure is referred to as "benefits transfer." Because data existed on the whole state, individual region's functions could be tested for transferability statistically. Results indicated that for a 25% increase in the crappie catch rate, per trip benefits ranged from $6.91 to $47.13. Transferability tests indicated that anglers response to the demand variables was unique to each region.