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LOGAN — Recently published research from the Department of Environment and Society at Utah State University highlights how some of Utah’s national parks may be affected by increasing summer temperatures.
The study, titled “Climate and visitation to Utah’s ‘Mighty 5’ national parks,” was published in “Tourism Geographies” in February. By looking at longitudinal monthly visitation data from five national parks in southern Utah — Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon and Zion — USU researchers found that visitation rates are typically highest in summer months — until average daily temperatures exceed 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
“We wanted to see if these climate variables affected each of the parks similarly, or if there were actually differences,” said Dr. Jordan Smith, an assistant professor at Utah State University who led the study.
Smith, along with co-authors Emily Wilkins, Riana Gayle and Chase C. Lamborn, looked at monthly data from 1979 to 2014 and found that “temperature is positively related to (national park) visitation.”
“And that’s not surprising,” Smith told KSL.com. “As it warms up, more people are able to get outside, and we do see the vast majority of park visitations within the state are within the summer months.”
However, they also discovered despite having high visitor numbers during warmer weather that “in the peak summer months,” between April and October when the temperature reached above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, “visitation started to plateau, it started to level off.”
This trend was observed in the national parks in central eastern Utah, including Arches, Canyonlands and Capitol Reef, Smith said, noting that these parks typically get around 100,000 visitors in peak summer months.
It’s unique, almost an anomaly for tourism destinations, for outdoor destinations, where we see visitation continue to rise even when it gets really, really hot.
–Dr. Jordan Smith, assistant professor at Utah State University
“But that’s not the same story for Bryce Canyon or for Zion, where, for both of them, summer visitation continues to climb even when the average daily temperature gets well above 85 (degrees Fahrenheit),” Smith said.
In fact, unlike Arches, Canyonlands and Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon and Zion seem unaffected by the drastic temperatures that cause visitation rates at the other parks to plateau, Smith said.
There are multiple factors that could explain this, Smith said. One reason could be Zion and Bryce Canyon’s relative closeness to the highway. A lot of international visitors come to these parks, Smith said, and the close proximity to the highway may make these parks more easily accessible.
It could also be “because those two parks, Zion and Bryce, are both canyon-based parks,” Smith said. Most of the attractions in these parks “are based at the bottom of those canyons where they have rivers and streams, which create unique microclimates that actually make it a lot more temperate and tolerable for people to recreate there in the summer months,” even when temperatures reach above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
“It’s unique, almost an anomaly for tourism destinations, for outdoor destinations, where we see visitation continue to rise even when it gets really, really hot,” Smith said.
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“Climate is obviously related to visitation patterns,” the study said, “but how and why is it related to visitation patterns is a product of a more diverse array of factors (e.g. vegetative cover, geographic relief, types of recreational activities supported, etc.) than are commonly considered in research on climate and tourism.”
Smith said the study’s findings highlight the challenges national parks face, as average temperatures in southern Utah have increased by between 1- 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century. “And that increase is expected to continue to happen, and happen at a faster rate, over the coming decades,” he said.
In light of this, Smith said there will be an “increased pressure” on park officials “to accommodate visitors, typically in summer months.”
With shifting temperatures, Smith said visitation rates can be expected to spread out to shoulder seasons, such as between February and April or between October and November.
Smith said parks like Zion, which gets almost half a million visitors on average in the peak of July, will have to continue to address how to meet increasing visitor demands.
