Regional economic impact assessments of recreational fisheries: an application of the IMPLAN modeling system to marine party and charter boat fishing in Maine.

Abstract Regional economic impact assessments (EIAs) of recreational fisheries reveal how anglers' expenditures affect economic activity such as sales, income, and employment in a particular region. Unfortunately, most EIA studies report only the final impacts of the EIA, without describing the economic interdependencies that produced the impacts or how the results should and should not be used to guide management decisions. This is particularly troublesome because most resource managers only vaguely understand how EIA models work and how to interpret the results in a fisheries management framework. The purpose of this article is to provide a starting point toward establishing consistent and defensible techniques for conducting regional EIAs of recreational fisheries and to explore the appropriate uses of EIA outputs as they relate to the growing needs of natural resource managers. Using marine recreational party and charter boat fishing in Maine in 1996 as an example, an EIA was conducted with the IMPLAN...