Outdoor Recreation in Southeastern United States National Forests: An Investigation of the Influence of Ethnicity and Gasoline Price on Individual Participation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Line 35 - perhaps even more recent data could be cited. 

Lines 89-90 - a hypothesis is a conjecture, not a question. Hypothesis two is a research question. 

Line 106 and 220 - there is no Appendix A (Table A1) and Appendix B at the end of the article. Table B1

Line 111, 118, 119 - when was the research conducted? Two divergent time frames. 

Table 3 Table 6 - please describe what the results are - the first number and the second in (...).

Table 3 - you should format it - reduce the interlineation and insert horizontal lines, because the data is difficult to read 

Table 5 - please widen the columns so that in the first one the names fit on one line 

Table 6 - perhaps the names of the forests are better presented horizontally rather than vertically 

Discussion - very few literature items were used. 

Discussion - in my opinion, a major limitation of the study is also that the data is from 2010-2014, and we are already in 2022. There could have been many changes between these years. 

Line 472 - you mention tourist activities. But were all visitors to the forest tourists (by definition, a tourist uses at least one night's lodging)? Isn't it better to call them visitors? 

Conclusions - it's a repetition of the results for me. 

Line 476-483 - not filled in. 

Literature - it would be worth expanding the literature. 

 

Author Response

Thank you for the review.
Your suggestions were addressed in the latest draft. Please, see attached document!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper appears to provide some valuable insight to motivations and drivers of outdoor recreation related to demographics and constraints such as fuel costs associated with recreation.  The modeling framework is sound and comprehensive to answer research questions.  However, this paper does not adequately fit the manuscript style of “data descriptor” that this review was intended. The paper does not provide any data availability statement and does not describe the datasets in detail as “openly accessible” and does not provide any additional content such as updates to a dataset, a fuller release of a dataset, or useful information to enhance data transparency. It should not be accepted for publication in its current form, but should undergo extensive revisions and be re-submitted as a research article for review.

Specific Comments:

Line 15: change word “travels” to “travel” to improve grammatical structure of sentence

Line 27: remove word “of” to improve grammar

Line 34-35:  The correct term is U.S. Forest Service

Line 38: Capitalize the term “National Forest” and be consistent throughout with spelling and capitalization

Line 57: remove word “are” and replace with “is”

Line 58: avoid statements that define absolute outcomes without support from data “an increase in the gasoline price will negatively affect NF visit frequency”…perhaps use the word “may” negatively affect visit frequency

Line 71: the citation for Shrestha et al. [17] in text refers to a study in Florida, yet the reference title and list at the end of the manuscript refers to a study done in Brazil.  This should be corrected, checked, and clarified throughout for internal citations.

Line 87 (and throughout): Using the term Caucasian and White to describe the sample is fine, but for clarify, please pick one term and use it consistently throughout the paper

Line 96: Capitalize the words “National Forest” or use the abbreviation “NF” as described previously

Line 104: I recommend using standard units for elevation (meters, not feet)

Line 135-140: this section of the paper should include further detail in relation to the data description, data quality, data access, archiving, and metadata that are required for a paper to be defined as a “data descriptor” in the journal guidelines

Lines 196-204: the clustering analyses are appropriate, but the group names are not.  Each group should be appropriately named based upon their activities/profile, and should be clear and professional.  For example, “proffy” is slang and unclear and “snobs” is not professional.  I would suggest “generalist”, “intermediate”, and “specialized” recreationalists.

Line 231: change the word “sells” to “cells” if referring to datasets

Line 257: for Table 3, the caption should provide more detailed information about what values are presented.  I assume these are regression coefficients, but further details should be provided

Line 260-261: be consistent with capitalization and usage of term “White”, “whites”, “Other”, etc.

Line 306: Once again, the table caption should be much more informative.  What value are being presented here?

Line 302-304: description of the variables that are significant should be clarified and presented in another sentence structure.  Ex: “the number under 16” is unclear – this likely means the number of people under the age of 16 in a recreation group – yet it is not written out clearly in such a way

Line 316: it is not appropriate to identify visitors in each clustering groups as “snobs” and “funs” grammatically in a sentence.

 

Line 354-365: additional modeling sets beyond the clustering analyses are useful for supplemental data, but do not need to be presented in the manuscript.  It gives the impression that the authors are data mining to find sets of models and or aggregation techniques that help further their results.  Useful, but should be placed in the supplementary materials since they are mostly redundant with earlier results.

 

Author Response

Thank you for the review.
Your suggestions were addressed in the latest draft. Please, see attached document!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Just a few minor edits on an otherwise good paper.

 

Hypothesis 2: An increase in gas prices affects travel cost..."

 

I have some concerns with the older data set which is about 10 years old. How does it even come close to reflecting the massive changes taking place through the pandemic, and all of the disruptions to travel as we knew it?

I also have some concerns with the missing data. Do you still have confidence with the data given this fact?

The econometric nature of the paper will make it less accessible to the readership.

The friction of distance and distance decay research of the past would have helped situate the paper in a theoretical context.

 

Why is the impact less strong for participants in water sports? What's going on with this finding?

The paper is extremely data heavy, which I think detracts from its overall usefulness.

What are the within-group differences that might provide greater insights into similarities and differences between the two major groups?

There is extreme redundancy in the paper between the Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. Essentially there is a retelling of the Results and no real way to the future.

Author Response

Thank you for the review.
Your suggestions were addressed in the latest draft. Please, see attached document!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Revisions noted in the first round have not been fully addressed.  There are still issues with grammar, citations, use of appropriate terminology for U.S. Forest Service, unclear figure and table captions, and unprofessional terminology based upon survey response groups.  The paper is also still not properly formatted as a "data descriptor" and does not include details about the data or it's availability or description.  Without further revisions addressing the first round of comments in more detail, it will need to be rejected.

Author Response

We appreciate your constructive criticism and apologize for the inconsistency in the previous revised manuscript. We have revised the manuscript again and have made the relevant corrections.

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Revisions have improved the manuscript largely.

Author Response

Please see attached document

Author Response File: Author Response.docx