The impact of wildfires on the recreational value of heathland: A discrete factor approach with adjustment for on-site sampling

Abstract

This study extends the finite mixture model proposed by Landry and Liu (2009) to control for on-site sampling in the context of a system of recreation demand equations. We apply the model to a quasi-panel of recreational trip data under current and hypothetical wildfire conditions. We use the estimated model to provide the first estimate of recreational value for heathland in a European protected area and for how wildfires affect this value. Although we find statistical support for our proposed on-site sampling correction, we find that the correction generates no significant impact on welfare measures in our application.