Climate change and recreation: When will you go out in the woods today
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Global warming is changing how and when we play. Without a proactive response, we’re setting ourselves up for an unpleasant surprise.
This article is part of a series of stories exploring the connection between climate change and recreation. Through conversations with scientists, advocates, land managers, recreationalists, and more, we’ll look at how a warming world and more extreme weather is impacting the activities we love. But more than glum news, we’re interested in how the recreation industry is already hard at work preparing for change, reducing the impacts, and actively trying to slow global warming.
By late October coastal British Columbia’s campgrounds are usually empty. Last fall was an exception. As warm and dry conditions replaced the usual November parade of storms, British Columbians flocked like migrating geese to places like BC Hydro’s Upper Campbell Reservoir campground. Even on some November weekends the 21 RV-friendly sites were all occupied. Campers welcomed the late-season opportunity, but it was more of a mixed blessing for BC Hydro, who had already laid off most of its campground staff.
This is an example of one of the more complex and impactful implications of global warming on recreation. Climate change will alter how and when we play. It probably already has. During heat waves we’re more likely to run and bike earlier in the day. When it hasn’t snowed in a while, everyone shows up on the powder day. We’re increasingly recreating on dirt when historically the trails would be covered in snow.
Some of the changes in behaviour are predictable, but the broader implications of those changes are almost impossible to anticipate. Of all climate change impacts on recreation, understanding future participation may be the most important and challenging, influencing everything from funding trail maintenance to staffing campgrounds, when anglers fish to crowding on ski hills.
“There’s a lot we can think about and predict when it comes to participation, but we’re mostly guessing,” says Matthieu Roy, the chief trail experience officer with the Trans Canada Trail. “The science on how climate change will affect ecosystems and recreation is advancing rapidly, yet managers are still often left with the question of what on-the-ground actions to take to respond to the climate impacts.”
Climate change alters participation in two general ways. One is directly: we go or don’t go because of the weather. For instance, if a winter is too dry and warm there will be no snow at the ski hills and we can’t go skiing. The second is indirectly: climate change makes the setting less desirable. Forest fires are a classic example. During the fire, we avoid the area because of the danger and smoke pollution. Afterwards, we continue to recreate elsewhere because burnt forests are subjectively less pleasant.
In Canada, recreation managers are only responding to the latter, says Roy. They adjust for specific events, like longer pool hours during a heat wave or closing a trail when a river floods. This is necessary, but so is a proactive approach to long-term participation trends.
There are two major challenges holding back more proactive approaches.
One is that the impacts are not uniform. One paper found that participation in winter recreation in the western U.S. may decline by up to 50 percent by 2050 as the season for skiing, snowmobiling and snowshoeing shortens and conditions become more variable. But another concluded the same factors will increase congestion and intensity of use when the conditions are good. Further confusing things, intense use leads to crowding, which could drive down satisfaction and thus participation.
Another example is the impact of droughts and heat waves. Both lead to more algae blooms that make swimming dangerous and are dangerous for fish and birds. But warm temperatures and longer summers should also encourage more fishing, hunting and wildlife viewing, according to research led by the US Forest Service, which could lead to unsustainable harvesting when species are most vulnerable.
“The primary adaptation strategy for wildlife-based recreation will be to increase flexibility in wildlife and fish management to accommodate seasonal changes in animal abundance," the study authors concluded.
The second challenge for Canadians is that all these studies are American. There is little research from British Columbia or Canada, says Roy. His organization is starting to gather data to help it anticipate future needs and answer important questions.
If we start hiking, cycling and running earlier and later in the day to beat the heat what does that mean for park operating hours or the toilet cleaning schedule? Can we tweak trail design to catch and keep snow or provide cyclists with more shade? If campgrounds want to extend their season deeper into the spring and fall where will they get their seasonal staff from? And, importantly, what will these changes cost.
Another U.S. study, this time from Utah State University, estimated that climate change will drive up the cost of managing parks by 25 to 61 percent in 2050 compared to 2017. Though the costs of a warming planet were insignificant compared to the whopping 756 percent increase the same study attributed to managing more people, if growth in outdoor recreation participation continues at the same pace as recent years.
What is clear is that, no matter what climate change brings, the way we recreate is changing and will continue to change. Parks and land managers are going to need more money to anticipate and respond. If they don’t get it, we will all feel the effects.
Ryan Stuart started writing about his adventures as a way to get paid to play. Twenty years later he’s still at it. Look for his name in magazines like Outside, Men’s Journal, Ski Canada, online at Hakai and The Narwhal. When he’s not typing at his home office in Vancouver Island’s Comox Valley, you can find him skiing, hiking, mountain biking, surfing, paddling or fishing somewhere nearby.
