Attendance up at beaches with pollution controls, study finds

California’s outdoor resources -- its beaches, mountains and deserts -- are key assets in fueling the state’s $106-billion tourism industry.

A new study finds that keeping those assets pristine helps keep visitors coming.

Beaches that have stormwater mitigation programs have significantly higher attendance than those with no such pollution control measures, according to a new study by scholars at UCLA.

The report by visiting scholar Ryan Vaughn and others at the Ziman Center for Real Estate found that beaches with stormwater mitigation programs had an average of 600,000 more visitors per year than those that did not.

The study was based on attendance numbers taken at 26 beaches in Southern California over a 10-year period. Such factors as population growth and weather at the beaches were taken into consideration, Vaughn said.

“The major goal of the study is to show there are real economic impacts to any kind of envornmental improvements,” he said.

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