The proposed research is designed to meet five objectives. The first three
objectives will be met within the two year timeframe of the project. The fourth and fifth objectives are related to the development of an agent-based model that is part of the previously mentioned large lake biocomplexity project. The objectives are to:

1) Analyze the current and potential demand for specific ecosystem services and lake-based recreation/tourism activities in and around Lake Erie (Year 1).

2) Explore the heterogeneous decision making processes that individuals use to make lakebased recreation decisions and how various interactions and information treatments influence decision making (Year 2).

3) Estimate the demand for Lake-based recreation and tourism and provide information to local decision makers on the types of information sources most effective in promoting lake-based activities (Year 2).

4) Develop an agent-based model of recreation to explore the implications of agent
heterogeneity and social interactions for aggregate recreational demand and market dynamics (Years 1-3).

5) Integrate the agent-based model developed in Objective 4 with biophysical models of Lake Erie to better our understanding of how changes in the lake influence recreation decisions and how these individual decisions "aggregate up" to impact the lake's ecosystem (Year 3).

Lake Erie and its "ecosystem services," such as fish stocks and water quality, provide vital opportunities for recreation and tourism in and around the lake. However, the ways in which household recreation and tourism decisions depend on the health of the lake itself and the processes by which households make such choices are not well understood. While much research within environmental economics has focused on statistical models linking individual characteristics and site characteristics with individual recreational choices, relatively little work
has been done on uncovering the "mental models" or decision making processes by which these choices are made. The proposed research seeks to understand the process by which individuals make recreational and tourism choices, including differences in how individuals trade-off ecological vs. non-ecological attributes and how interactions with others (e.g., through word-of-mouth) and information shocks (e.g., a public awareness campaign) influence decision making.

In the current research we propose to use a survey, experiments and modeling exercises to gain a better understanding of how individuals make recreation and tourism decisions in Lake Erie. Understanding how individuals gather information, perceive the experience of others and react to various types of information will provide the foundation for developing a comprehensive model of interactive decision making.