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25 B. Property Owners Encountered Using The River Property owners who were encountered using the river were sampled according to the same sampling plan generated for conducting interviews. Tabulating encounters with property owners (identified through initial screening questions, see the interview form in Appendix B) allowed for estimation of the relative importance of use by property owners versus non- owners. Property owners were given a self-administered questionnaire rather than having inlerviewer time allocated to questioning property owners. The questionnaire asked similar questions on recreational use and asked some elementary questions about attitudes and satisfaction regarding property ownership. The data gathered here came at little additional cost and established a basis for the design of the mail survey of property owners in general. C. Riparian Property Owners In General To learn about river use and potential trade-offs from management decisions, a random sample of riparian property owners will be sampled. This stage of the research is still in progress at the date of this writing. The MHB generated a master list of property owners along the first 400 miles of the Mississippi River. Five hundred households were randomly selected from a lotal population of about 4,000. This survey is being mailed later this spring. The questionnaire is similar to the interview where possible, especially on recreational use, but includes detailed questions about property ownership. Portions of this questionnaire are provided in Appendix C. D. River Users Who Use Controlled Access Sites To augment the infonnation obtained from interviews, self- administered surveys were distributed at controlled access sites. To be included in the sample, it was necessary to have personnel present at the site to distribute the questionnaire and to record names and addresses so that a reminder could be sent to those who did not respond within a couple of weeks. All of the sites chosen - resorts, private campgrounds, outfitters, state and federal parks, etc. - had personnel present who volunteered their time to distribute questionnaires randomly and to record the necessary information for conducting follow-ups. The twelve sites were distributed rather well geographically over the 400 miles, but obviously could not provide representativeness of the user population as a whole. This sample over-represented tourists, but the additional information on this group was well worth gathering. Survey Design TIle interview form is provided in Appendix B and portions of property owner survey are shown in Appendix C. In accordance with the research objectives, questions were asked to establish a profile of river users along the differenl stretches and to receive public input pertaining to four major management issues: (1) environmental quality within the watershed, (2) development within the corridor, (3) congestion or conflicl in recreational uses, and (4) fluctuation in in stream flows. Information on these management issues was obtained in a variety of forms, including (a) specific aspects of a trip (e.g. number of other groups encountered, conflicts among uses) (b) activities, behaviors, and satisfaction ratings, (c) open-ended responses, and (d) importance-performance analysis. The interviews (see question 19 and 20 series, adapted from Cordell) evaluated importance of eleven aspects of a recreational experience on the river and then asked about satisfaction with those aspects. Given the nature of this research as a baseline study, rather heavy reliance was placed on open-ended questions. The interview questionnaire established the basis for the other three questionnaires. The four instruments were designed to be as comparable as possible, allowing for differences in implementation methods and between sub- samples. Obviously the property-owner questionnaires included questions which would not have been appropriate for lion-owners. The mail survey to property owners included a great deal of additional detail pertaining to managemelll of land use. Rivers Without Boundaries 1994 ~