Oklahoma State University is set to conduct a study on the impact of the number of people and boats on the popular Illinois River.
The Tulsa World reports that the Grand River Dam Authority approved the study to be carried out by the university's geography department last week.
The authority's vice president for scenic rivers and water quality, Ed Fite, says the last time the river's carrying capacity was analyzed was in the 1990s.
According to Fite, the study is about finding a balance of protecting the river and letting people use it for economic prosperity.
The population within the Illinois River basin has increased from 200,000 to nearly 600,000 since the 1990s, and projections are for the growth to continue.