Utah boating and fishing survey: Applying contingent valuation and travel cost methods to estimate recreation values in northern Utah for the Bear River Water Development Project

The intent of this thesis is to compare contingent valuation methods (CVM) and travel cost methods (TCM) to estimate consumer surplus for boaters and anglers in northern Utah. TCM results are about three times that of CVM. Several limitations are noted, specifically that CVM solicits given willingness to pay (WTP) for specific reservoir sites. TCM analyzes aggregated trips to reservoirs with a wide array of site characteristics.