Establishment of a Dredged Material Disposal Site in the Exclusive Economic Zone: New Zealand

Disposal options for muddy dredged material, especially if lightly contaminated, is an issue facing many countries, particularly if environmental protection and adherence to the Protocols of the London Dumping Convention is a regulatory requirement. For the case of the oceanic islands of New Zealand, disposal of muddy dredged material has become an issue for the prime city of Auckland. Accordingly, it has been necessary to investigate a suitable marine disposal site outside of the territorial seas in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Ideal properties for such a disposal site include a near flat surface on the continental shelf, with sediments of similar textural characteristics to the material being disposed, a site of non-critical benthic ecology, water depths sufficient to enable the disposal site to be monitored (as required under the London Dumping Convention), a site experiencing low shelf currents, not affected by significant wave agitation, and a site not of cultural significance. The approach for site establishment and gaining consent for disposal activities is reviewed. Preliminary investigations supporting a proposed site on the continental shelf in the EEZ are presented.     

Have tropical marine protected areas worked? An initial analysis of their success

A multinomial choice framework was used to analyze data from hypothetical storm forecast scenarios administered via mail survey to a random sample of U.S. Gulf Coast residents. Results indicate that the issuance of a mandatory evacuation notice and the presence of higher wind speeds had the largest influence on increasing the likelihood of evacuation. Age, race, disability, distance, and education were significant in explaining one's decision to wait relative to choosing to evacuate. Blacks and disabled individuals were strictly less likely to wait and more likely to make an immediate evacuation decision. Hurricane Katrina evacuees and those with an evacuation destination identified were also more likely to decide to evacuate, but were also more likely to wait before deciding. Results indicate that residents of mobile homes were more likely to either evacuate or wait before making a decision, but strictly less likely not to evacuate. Respondents very confident in being rescued were strictly more likely not to evacuate. Results indicate that not having an evacuation destination identified was the most influential factor regarding the likelihood of not knowing what choice to make.     

Book review

Recreation: Marine Promise, Proceedings of the National Conference on Marine Recreation Susan H. Andersen, Ed., October 2–4, 1975, Newport Beach, California

Parable Beach: A Primer in Coastal Zone Economics by J. W. Devanney III, G. Ashe, and B. Parkhurst, The MIT Press, 1976, 99 pp.

Marine Recreational Fisheries, Proceedings of the First Annual Marine Recreational Fisheries Symposium Henry Clepper, ed., New Orleans, Louisiana, February 27, 1976.     

Wetlands protection: The regulatory role of the U.S. army corps of engineers

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers administers the only nationwide regulatory program that controls development activities in U.S. waters and wetlands. This article examines the statutory authorities, jurisdictional limitations, and evolution of the current Corps regulations, which express a strong policy to protect wetlands, estuaries, and tidal waters from unnecessary dredging, filling, or other alteration. The article explains the organization and procedures of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and examines in detail several precedential permit cases which have developed and implemented the Corps “wetlands policy.”; The article also evaluates current and potential policies underlying the regulatory efforts of the Corps of Engineers.     

Linking an activity-based travel demand model with traffic emission and dispersion models: Transport’s contribution to air pollution in Toronto

This paper describes the development of an integrated approach for assessing ambient air quality and population exposure as a result of road passenger transportation in large urban areas. A microsimulation activity-based travel demand model for the Greater Toronto Area – the Travel Activity Scheduler for Household Agents – is extended with capabilities for modelling and mapping of traffic emissions and atmospheric dispersion. Hourly link-based emissions and zone-based soak emissions were estimated. In addition, hourly roadway emissions were dispersed at a high spatial resolution and the resulting ambient air concentrations were linked with individual time-activity patterns derived from the model to assess person-level daily exposure. The method results in an explicit representation of the temporal and spatial variation in emissions, ambient air quality, and population exposure.     

Long-term behavior of particulate matters at urban roadside and background locations in Seoul,Korea

The concentrations of particulate matter, PM_2.5, PM₁₀, and TSP at an urban roadside and an urban background station are analyzed. Data collected over a 10 year period are analyzed. The concentrations of the particulates measured at the urban site are systematically larger than at the background station. The mean PM values at the former also exhibit a slight fall over the decade unlike those at the background station. Overall, the particulate matters at both locations are in an intermediate range of global level, e.g., approximately two times lower than those in other Asian regions but higher than in Europe.     

Port performance in Asia: Does production efficiency imply environmental efficiency?

Atmospheric and water pollution are two main sources of negative environmental externalities generated by shipping. This study recognizes the negative externalities in the production of port services in East Asia by explicitly incorporating environmental impacts of shipping. Programming techniques are used to analyze 156 Origin–Destination pairs between 13 major East Asian ports, to derive the externality-augmented measures of port productivity and efficiency at the waterside. The results suggest that the inclusion of externality mitigation strategies can exert a considerable influence on efficiency performance.     

Statistical characterization of surfaces of corroded steel plates

The statistical characteristics of corroded steel plate surfaces exposed to marine environments are of interest for assessing longer term structural safety and integrity using probabilistic methods. This requires information about the variability of corrosion loss and pitting over surfaces. The present paper reports on the observed statistical character of the surfaces of 10 large (1.2 m × 0.8 m × 3 mm thick) steel plates exposed in temperate climate marine immersion, tidal and splash zones for 2.5 years. For the analysis the plates were cut into smaller segments that were mechanically scanned to obtain digitised surface topographies. These were then analysed to estimate the correlation structure and the standard deviation of the surface topography. Considerable differences were found for these and for the mean corrosion loss between different exposure zones. For any one segment the surface topography was found to be highly statistically dependent, implying that smaller coupon sizes can provide adequate estimates of corrosion loss. From this it may be inferred that the deepest pits are not statistically independent as commonly assumed in extreme value statistical representations.     

The existence of an equilibrium solution to the traffic assignment problem when there are junction interactions

We consider a network with interactions and capacity constraints at each junction. We give conditions on the interactions and constraints which, if satisfied at each separate junction, ensure that any feasible assignment problem has an equilibrium solution. Two illustrative examples are provided; the first arises naturally and does not satisfy our conditions, while the second does satisfy our conditions but is somewhat unnatural.     

On appropriate microstate descriptions in entropy modelling

Using an information-theoretic approach to entropy modelling, expressions for the possible number of microstates are derived from the sets of choices available to households and firms in given location/transport planning situations. In planning applications, the urban space is usually subdivided into discrete zones, and various classes of householders and firms are grouped into separate activities. Nevertheless, the location sites within zones may vary considerably in accessibility, price and quality, and amenity v. cost trade-offs between location and travel many differ markedly between individuals within the same activity group. The inclusion of such variations within a random utility framework is demonstrated to be equivalent to maximizing entropy with the microstates disaggregated to the level where these variations occur. Using constraints based on spatial conditions, observed behaviour and planning policy, entropy maximization is used to determine the most probable macrostate according to each choice set specification. The resulting distributions are compared and their revelance discussed.