USDA Forest Service
Recreation, Heritage & Wilderness Resources
Mail Stop 1125
1400 Independence Ave. SW
Washington, D.C. 20090-1125

(202) 205-1706

Recreation, Heritage & Volunteer Resources Programs

National Visitor Use Monitoring Program

The NVUM program has two concurrent goals. First, to produce estimates of the volume of recreation visitation to National Forests and Grasslands. Second, to produce descriptive information about that visitation, including activity participation, demographics, visit duration, measures of satisfaction, and trip spending connected to the visit.

Reports on visitation and visitor characteristics are now available through the NVUM results application This application contains results for all NVUM fieldwork since FY2005.

• Proceed to the NVUM Results application…

Money spent by visitors in connection with their national forest recreation contributes to the economic health of the communities nearby to forest lands.  Estimates of contributions by National Forest and region are available through the economic contribution website.

NVUM National Reports

• 2016 National Report
• 2015 National Report
• 2014 National Report

Research reports and publications

• An Outdoor Recreation Use Model with Applications to Evaluating Survey Estimators
• 4 Year Report on Spending Profiles
• Spending Profiles of NF Visitors by Activity
• Statistics Methods

Manager's References and Tools

• Sample Year References & Tools (collecting data)

Historic Visitor Use Information

• Visitor Use Information 1924-1996 (PDF)
• Visitor Use by State for Fiscal Years 1993-1996