Marina inventory and berthing supply projections: Mississippi's Gulf Coast

Abstract

The location as well as pace of marina development is a major issue in current coastal zone management. The supply and demand for marinas providing certain services in specific locations are growing and must be met. At the same time the environmental integrity of the coastal zone must be maintained against the many possible impacts of marina development. Compounding these problems from the view of both the developer and coastal zone manager is the absence of necessary data and accepted methodologies for estimating future supply needs for marine berthing. This paper describes a multi‐focii approach to the establishment of an information base and marina supply projections for the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Data on existing marina types, services, and facilities are obtained via fieldwork; future marina slip supply needs are estimated using a combination of several techniques and data sources. The study serves two purposes. First, it initiates the basis for improved management of marina development on Mississippi's Gulf Coast. Second, on a more theoretical level, it stimulates research toward developing and validating supply and demand projection techniques for marinas.     

Adaptation Pathways in Coastal Case Studies: Lessons Learned and Future Directions

Climate change adaptation presents a difficult challenge for coastal towns around the world, forcing local governments to plan for sea level rise in a contentious decision-making space. The concept of “adaptation pathways,” a diagnostic and analytical tool to assist in adaptive planning and decision-making, is gaining traction as a way of framing and informing climate adaptation. It provides decisionmakers a way to acknowledge the inter-temporal complexities and uncertainties associated with the novel dynamics of climate change and a mechanism to manage these challenges in the local context. In 2012, the Australian Government funded an 18-month program to provide decisionmakers in the coastal zone an opportunity to test the utility of the adaptation pathways concept for coastal climate adaptation. Using a selection of completed projects as case studies, we performed a document analysis to better understand the learnings from the projects. The main themes surrounded: (1) the utility of the adaptation pathway framework in developing options, (2) decision-making rationale and criteria, and (3) stakeholder participation in pathway development. A project participant survey was developed to further understand these themes. Our analysis reveals that “adaptation pathways” was generally framed narrowly and conservatively to emphasize extant economic, administrative and legal considerations over community, participatory, or exploratory ones. Although some case study projects were able to reach a point in the pathway discussion to actively involve stakeholders in their decision-making process, many case studies continued to build technical data as a method for defending policies and actions. These results indicate that coastal adaptation can take-up adaptation pathways as a useful concept for decision-making and planning; however, many councils may still require assistance in stakeholder communication processes in order to develop sociallyacceptable plans that take into account the full range of values affecting local coastal environments.     

Travel mode choice and travel satisfaction: bridging the gap between decision utility and experienced utility

Over the past decades research on travel mode choice has evolved from work that is informed by utility theory, examining the effects of objective determinants, to studies incorporating more subjective variables such as habits and attitudes. Recently, the way people perceive their travel has been analyzed with transportation-oriented scales of subjective well-being, and particularly the satisfaction with travel scale. However, studies analyzing the link between travel mode choice (i.e., decision utility) and travel satisfaction (i.e., experienced utility) are limited. In this paper we will focus on the relation between mode choice and travel satisfaction for leisure trips (with travel-related attitudes and the built environment as explanatory variables) of study participants in urban and suburban neighborhoods in the city of Ghent, Belgium. It is shown that the built environment and travel-related attitudes—both important explanatory variables of travel mode choice—and mode choice itself affect travel satisfaction. Public transit users perceive their travel most negatively, while active travel results in the highest levels of travel satisfaction. Surprisingly, suburban dwellers perceive their travel more positively than urban dwellers, for all travel modes.     

Challenges in Collaborative Governance for Coastal Restoration: Lessons from the Caernarvon River Diversion in Louisiana

In an effort to restore deteriorating coastal wetlands in Breton Sound, Louisiana, a diversion of Mississippi River water into the estuarine ecosystem has been operated at Caernarvon, Louisiana, since 1991. The diversion was implemented after a relatively long collaborative planning process beginning in the 1950s. The Caernarvon Interagency Advisory Committee, an official panel of stakeholders, considers scientific aspects of the freshwater inflow and stakeholder inputs in developing an operational plan, which internalizes stakeholder conflicts, while accomplishing goals of restoring the coastal ecosystem. Even though fishery representatives are committee members, local oyster fishers filed lawsuits in federal and state courts from 1994 through 2005, claiming damages to their oyster beds. These lawsuits were initially successful in state courts but were reversed by the Louisiana Supreme Court. The federal suits were unsuccessful. Following these lawsuits, voters in Louisiana in 2000 amended the State Constitution to protect coastal restoration projects against lawsuits reflecting increase in overall statewide support. Increasing scientific knowledge has contributed significantly to diversion operation. For better collaborative governance, efforts to increase common understanding among stakeholders will be needed, and a process to compensate interests of stakeholders suffering from impacts of restoration projects at an earlier stage should be institutionalized.     

Spatially Prioritizing Seafloor Mapping for Coastal and Marine Planning

Coastal and marine areas provide vital services to support the economic, cultural, recreational, and ecological needs of human communities, but sustaining these benefits necessitates a balance between growing and often competing uses and activities. Minimizing coastal zone conflict and reducing human-induced impacts to ecological resources requires access to consistent spatial information on the distribution and condition of marine resources. Seafloor mapping provides a detailed and reliable spatial template on the structure of the seafloor that has become a core data need for many resource management strategies. The absence of detailed maps of the seafloor hinders the effectiveness of priority setting in marine policy, regulatory processes, and marine stewardship. For large management areas, the relatively high cost of seafloor mapping and limited management budgets requires careful spatial prioritization. In order to address this problem, a consensus based approach, aided by decision-support tools, and participatory geographic information systems (GIS), was implemented in Long Island Sound to spatially prioritize locations, define additional data collection efforts needed, and identify products needed to inform decision-making. The methodology developed has utility for other states and regions in need of spatially prioritizing activities for coastal planning, and organizations charged with providing geospatial services to communities with broad informational needs.     

A summary of findings from the first 25 Ballast Water Treatment Systems evaluated by GESAMP

As part of the preparations for entry into force of the Ballast Water Convention (2004), the International Maritime Organization has initiated a process to evaluate the safety and efficacy of potential technologies for disinfecting ballast water on board ships. Ballast Water Management Systems intended to remove potentially ‘harmful aquatic organisms’ are subjected to a review process, one aspect of which is aimed at ensuring safety by assessing the risks of the systemto the environment, human health (including the ships crew) as well as the safety of the ship. With 25 systems in the various stages of the evaluation process and some already approved, this paper takes a first look at the types of systems under development, especially their environmental characteristics and look for any emerging trends. Quite awide range of different technologies are being developed based on chemical, physicochemical and physical mechanisms. Of these, chlorination by electrolysis in-situ is the most common and indications are that such systems may become even more common.     

班轮公会最后的闪光时刻?

2003年3月,欧盟执行委员会按照4056/86号委员会规章而授予班轮公会的限制豁免法令.这项允许海运公司集体探讨并制定海运费用价格的豁免法令必须满足特定条件才能生效即必须产生经济利益;所产生的经济利益必须由海运公司及其客户均匀、公平分摊;班轮公会对于班轮服务来说确实不可替代;班轮公会不会遏制有效竞争的产生.