This can be particularly troublesome for resource goods and services that are not directly associated with human consumption or use, and for those which are not amenable to market transactions due to their public good orientation, their intergenerational nature, or to related qualities promoting market failures. The proliferation of natural resource subsidies can further hinder the use of economic statistics that, despite these shortcomings, still provide an essential numerical measure of value that is impossible to escape or ignore. For these reasons, the authors of this report have chosen to nest the review of economic statistics within discussions of the history, ideology, politics, and law of resource management, leading to a highly socioeconomic construct of value. This provides an appropriate perspective from which to value public land resources. Although it is impossible to quantify the full value of the federal public lands, some relevant statistical data can be presented for most of the major uses and values, especially those of an explicitly economic nature.
Federal lands are the source of most surface water supplies nationally.
Additionally, much of the nation s available water storage especially in the arid and semi-arid West is provided by federal water impoundments. In addition to storing water, many of these facilities generate huge sums of hydroelectricity. Over 130 billion kilowatt hours were generated in 1996 from facilities managed by the Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps of Engineers. Most components of the public lands receive heavy recreational use. In 1995, the Forest Service and National Park Service recorded 345 million and 110 million visitor days, respectively.