The inventory definitions make it clear that individual state park agencies manage far more than just state parks. Dependent upon the legislative mandate in a particular state, most state park agencies manage a variety of different types of areas, and they may not be the only agency in the state that administers those types of areas. State forests are a prime example. Eight state park agencies administer state forest, yet most states have their own state forestry agency. By contrast one state reported having no state parks in both the 1992 and the 1996 AIX reports. However, this same state has almost 42,000 acres administered by its "state park agency." State legislative bodies who designate the types of areas in a system have an impact on the ability of states to conform to predetermined definitions.

The size of the state park administered estate is quite large. In 1995 state park agencies reported administering 5,277 areas of which 4,820 were operational (91%), Included in this was 11,671,020 acres of areas. Table 2 depicts the size of the total state park agency administered estate. During the period between the 1991 and the 1995 report there were some significant changes within the system. The total number of areas in the system increased by 1,267 (31.6%), but the operating areas increased by 1.289 (36.5%) and total new acreage increased by 851,345 acres (7.9%).

The following table depicts the types and number of areas and the percentage each area represents of all areas managed by state park agencies. As would be expected state parks represent the largest single source or areas administered (33.5%). Recreation areas, natural areas, historic areas, and fish and wildlife areas round out the top five. The second part of the table indicates the number of acres in each of the areas administered along with its ranking by size. Again, state parks dominate as the largest single size area followed by recreation areas and natural areas. However, when looking at the acreage in the system, state parks clearly dominate accounting for 66.2% of all acres managed. Recreation areas are a distant second at 10.8% and forests third at 6.5% of the total estate. It would appear that even though the state park agencies administer a large variety of areas, their primary business is state parks. As shall be seen elsewhere in this chapter the size of the estate varies considerably by region and by type of area.

Alaska, by its size, presents a potential problem to the data, and as depicted in figure 4, does have a significant impact upon the state park estate. While Alaska makes up only 2.2% of all the areas in the system, it comprises 27.4% of all the acreage. Its largest single area in state parks, having 2,818,174 acres set aside representing 35.9% of America's state park system. It also impacts upon recreation areas having 300,250 acres (23.5% of the system). The remainder of the Alaska impacts are minimal upon other reported areas.

Inventory of State Park Areas by Regions

Tables 5 through 7 depict the state park estate by type of area. Figure 5 shows the state parks and recreation areas. Depicted in the table is the number of areas, number of operating areas, and acreage within each region. Of note is Alaska's portion of the Pacific region. Alaska accounts for 72% of the Pacific region's acreage. Even when Alaska is subtracted from the Pacific region's total the area still ranks second in acreage identified as state parks. It ranks first in acreage identified as Recreation Areas. The Northern region ranks first in number of areas and acreage, but also includes 20 states. The Southern region includes 13 states and ranks third in acreage dedicated to state parks and last in acreage committed to recreation areas.

It is difficult to extrapolate data beyond what is reported. Individual park sites are not reported by states and while regional and state means could be determined they would not provide additional valuable data. No specific effort is made to contrast population density with the availability of state park and recreation areas, but the table suggests that the Pacific region is over represented in areas and under represented in population.

Table 6 reflects the status of Natural and Historic areas. Alaska is included in the Pacific region for the remainder of this chapter. The Western region has the largest number of natural areas, but the Southern region has the largest acreage set aside for natural areas. Texas and Florida account for 434,094 acres of the total Southern region's natural area size (69.7%). Between 1992 and 1996 there was a 60% growth in the number of defined natural areas, but only a 6.8% growth in land area. The Western region showed a 165.9% growth (151 new areas) and the Pacific region reported a 61.7% growth (29 new areas) with Alaska having no reported natural areas. Colorado reported increasing the number of natural areas for 70 to 200 over the period, but showed only a 31,000 acre increase in the number of acres. Without inclusion of Colorado, the growth of natural areas still is encouraging. Every region showed some growth, with the Southern reporting the lowest growth.

Historic areas appear to be somewhat equally divided among the four regions with the Northern region having the largest number and the Southern region having the largest acreage. California has the largest area dedicated to historic areas (13,577 acres). Change between 1992 and 1996 has been very moderate with a growth of 36 new areas (7.1%) and 10,151 new acres (14.8%).

Environmental Education areas and Scientific area can not be classified as nationally recognized areas. The Northern region has 87.5% of the classified environmental education areas and 93.8% of the dedicated land. Only the Western region has also reported having environmental education areas. The same is true of scientific areas with the Northern region reporting 98.9% of the areas and 96.2% of the acreage set aside. The growth of these areas was dramatic between 1992 and 1996. There were 22 environmental education areas reported in 1992 and 48 areas reported in 1996. Illinois showed the most significant growth in this area going from none in 1992 to 23 areas in 1996 comprising 83,015 acres. Scientific areas showed an even more dramatic growth, with only 5 such areas in 1992 and 90 in 1996. The growth came almost wholly in Iowa who reported no scientific areas in 1992 and 85 in 1996.

Table 8 reports on Forests and Other areas by region. Forests present somewhat of an anomaly to the reporting process. Most states have their own forestry resource management administrative unit. Eight states in the Northern region report having some forest management responsibility. The data does not provide insights into whether separate forestry management units might be present in the state. No other region reports having any forest designated units.

Other areas show the diversity that is present in the identification of state park agency administered areas. As previously defined, Other areas are areas other than what has been previously identified, and that are considered special or significant enough in a particular state to warrant separate identification and treatment. These areas are deemed of sufficient importance to include in the state park estate, but defy classification within the context of the 8 areas identified in the NASPD AIX. The Southern and Western regions are underrepresented in numbers of areas, while only the Western region is considerably below the other regions in total acreage committed to the other area category. Between 1992 and 1996 the Pacific and Northern regions showed growth. In the Pacific region the number of these types of areas grew by 91.5% and in the Northern region by 47.5%. The Southern region actually showed a decline in the number of areas from 39 to 32 (-18.0%). Total acreage for all regions increased by 18,558 acres between the two reporting periods.

Fish and Wildlife areas constitute 3.5% of the State Park estate. This category also represents a function typically administered by a separate administrative unit in most states. The Western region has the largest percentage comprising 86.5% of the areas and 74.9% of the acreage. Kansas accounted for 110 areas (22.5%) and 280,595 acres (68.4%). West Virginia had 55,431 acres in 45 areas and Illinois had 45,232 acres in 31 areas. In 1992 it was reported that only 49 such sites existed in the State Park estate as opposed to 489 in 1996. It would seem logical to assume that transfers of authority, changes in state classification systems, and interpretation of how to report areas would account for a major portion of the reported change.

Miscellaneous areas comprise 190,619 acres or 1.6% of the state park estate. The 382 areas comprise 6.9% of the total areas administered by state park agencies. The number of miscellaneous areas has increased from the 1992 report by 56.6%, but the reported acreage has decreased by 12.2%. The data does not provide a clear picture as to why this has occurred. It could be postulated, given the definition of miscellaneous areas (areas that are not easily categorized or distinguished, or are not considered significant enough to warrant specification - "everything else."), that small tracts of land without easy classification have been added while larger tracts have received a formal classification. In some cases the Miscellaneous areas may be used as a holding category while the state park agency determines how to classify them.

Trends in Inventory

While not all trends are always clearly discernible, it appears that the state park estate is stable. While some growth was reported during the 1992-1996 reporting periods, it is not clear that the data would support the notion that the state park estate is expanding at a rapid rate. It would be more appropriate to suggest that there appears to be a moderate, if not conservative growth, within the estate. This assertion is tempered by the recognition of at least two factors that require consideration. First, that a longer reporting period would have been more beneficial, but even though data exists for earlier periods, much of it was collected under less rigorous criteria. Secondly, the lack of states reporting in a consistent manner on an annual basis presents problems. Even though the survey is very clear about the types of data to be included in each section, the rigor of the data collection, politically motivated decisions about reporting, inconsistency in application of definitions and like, present problems that are beyond the ability of this researcher to control. However, the NASPD AIX remains the single most detailed source of information about state parks in America.

Growth within State Parks between 1992 and 1996 was restricted to the Northern region which experienced a 5% growth in the number of classified State Parks and a 10.8% growth in the number of operating areas. The amount of acreage committed to state parks in the Northern region increased by 139,901 acres or an average of less than 7,000 acres per state. On a national basis the acreage increase was 176,711 or an average of 3,534 acres per state.