The Impacts of Harmful Algal Blooms and E. coli on Recreational Behavior in Lake Erie

摘要

This paper examines simultaneously the effect of E. coli and harmful algal blooms on recreational behavior using survey data collected from Ohio recreators who visited Lake Erie during the summer of 2016. Using simulation based on latent class models of recreation choice, we find beachgoers and recreational anglers would lose in aggregate $7.7 million and $69.1 million, respectively, each year if water quality conditions were to become so poor that Lake Erie's western basin were closed. Finally, we recover heterogeneity in recreators' aversion toward algae and Escherichia coli, with beachgoers more averse to E. coli and anglers more averse to algae.