Economic and social value of recreational facilities in urban areas by using Travel Cost Method (Case study: Amirkola Urban Park, Mazandaran Province, Iran)

Abstract

One cannot ignore the importance and role of parks and urban green space in providing the lost relief and welfare of people in industrial and civil life today as its importance and value is increasing day by day. Environment is regarded as a very valuable property form economic point of view with a wide economics range. Today, environmental economy uses different valuation methods to calculate the value of a park or an urban green space. Thereon, the value of Amirkola urban park in Babol was calculated by using valuated individual travel cost solution and physical and real carrying capacity of visitors from park. The results show that the average number of visitors in a day is 1000 -1100 people and the number of useful visiting days is 185. Regarding the average number of visitors and their traveling cost, the economic-recreational value of the park was estimated at 90.000 dollars in a useful day and 1.665.000 dollars in one year. Moreover, the physical carrying capacity of this park is estimated at 90.000 people per day and the real carrying capacity -after regarding restricting factors- is about 60.000 people per day.