Portland Magazine
Business
Engineering
September 26, 2019
by Marcus Covert ’93, ’97
BARELY HALF AN HOUR'S DRIVE from Portland, Multnomah Falls has long been Oregon’s most popular natural attraction, with some 2 to 3 million visitors from around the world each year. No wonder people across the Pacific Northwest were sick with grief as they choked on smoke and drifting ash from the 2017 Eagle Creek fire, eyes stinging from charred remains of a cherished place.
Two years later, visitors can breathe sighs of relief on seeing familiar trees, the tiered falls, iconic lodge, and open trails to the Benson Bridge and top viewing platform. But many hiking trails in the Gorge are still too dangerous to reopen now if ever, and while Multnomah Falls Lodge is unscathed and open for business, fire damage still poses a visible threat—falling rocks are now caught in huge steel nets over the trails, and some trails are still in need of repair.
Ruth Dittrich, assistant professor of economics in UP’s Pamplin School of Business, is leading a study to determine how the fire has changed usage and perception of Multnomah Falls. Dittrich is an expert in the economics of climate change adaptation—a growing field of economists who work to help businesses, farmers, and government agencies make sound economic decisions after weighing risks or prior consequences of environmental change. (Her investment advice can be pretty concrete. For instance, she helped a client in the UK determine how many trees to plant to slow flooding.)
This summer, Dittrich assembled an interdisciplinary team made up of economics major Connor Lorber ’20, civil engineering major Alex Junger ’20, and former Shiley School of Engineering dean Sharon Jones. They spent the summer of 2019 at Multnomah Falls tracking visitor numbers on trails from the main plaza to the top viewing platform using infrared and Bluetooth sensors and got more than 1,400 people to complete surveys on their experiences at the post-fire falls.
A major focus of the team’s efforts is to determine how much visitors would be willing to pay to see and experience Multnomah Falls. Right now entrance to the Falls is free. Still, “it has a value to people, otherwise they wouldn’t make the effort of going there year after year,” Dittrich says. “We can’t measure its value unless we ask—hypothetically—how much they would be willing to pay for a visitor permit.” Her team hopes to use the data to get a clearer picture of the economic benefit Multnomah Falls produces as a visitor attraction.
The data from the survey and the trail counts will provide important information for the US Forest Service—they’ll better understand where to focus trail maintenance and rehabilitation efforts. Their immediate concerns are visitor safety and conservation of the Multnomah Falls experience, but, according to Dittrich, “determining willingness-to-pay estimates that measure how much the Falls are worth to visitors can help inform the larger debate on future development of the Columbia Gorge.”
This research project was made possible thanks to a $10,000 grant from the Katherine Bisbee II Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation from the Oregon Alliance of Independent Colleges and Universities.
PHOTOS: Bob Kerns
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