Use of GIS-Based Models for Integrating and Developing Marine Fish Cages within the Tourism Industry in Tenerife (Canary Islands)

Site selection is a key factor in any aquaculture operation, affecting both success and sustainability. Moreover, it can solve conflicts between different coastal activities, making a rational use of the coastal space. Geographical information systems (GIS) have become of increased significance for environmental planning and assessment mainly because of the need to compare a great number of spatially related data, and because it can be used to couple these spatial data with their attributes and overlay them. This study used GIS and related technology to build a spatial database using those criteria which were considered to have any influence in integrating marine fish-cage culture within the tourism industry in Tenerife. Criteria were grouped in three submodels (distance to beaches, nautical sports, and viewshed), which were combined to generate a final output showing the most suitable areas for cage culture development in coexistence with tourism. Most areas of the coastline of Tenerife were identified as being suitable (56%) or very suitable (46%), suggesting that marine cage aquaculture could be developed on the island in coexistence with the well-established tourism industry.     

Information Required for Integrated Coastal Zone Management: Conclusions from the European Demonstration Programme

This article presents the results of the Thematic Study on "the role of information in delivering Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) in Europe." It provides a definition of information and discusses the need for, and nature of, information as it influences and supports ICZM. The conclusions from the study are summarized, highlighting the importance of viewing information provision as part of the process of developing effective ICZM. The results of InfoCoast '99, a symposium held in February 1999 on knowledge and information for coastal management, are discussed and some of the practical steps that have and can be taken to meet the information need for ICZM in Europe are considered.     

Transport infrastructure provision and operations: Why should governments choose private–public partnership?

Recent transport sector liberalisation, as well as global economic crisis, is favouring the implementation of transport infrastructure projects through Public–Private Partnerships (PPP). However, there is a debate as to whether PPP schemes are a better option than conventional procurement. To this end, an evaluation framework is proposed, to assess which of these two alternative schemes for transport projects financing is preferable for the public. The proposed framework is complimentary to the Value for Money (VfM) approach and is based on a Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA). The first step is the estimation of the Public Sector Comparator (PSC) for the case of conventional procurement, dealing with construction, maintenance and operation costs revenues, as well as any costs associated with risks undertaken by the public. As for the PPP case, it includes any payments by the public sector and related risks costs. The MCA is then applied only if the PPP is found preferable for the public sector. The latter considers additional impacts, including among others the social attributes of a particular scheme, job creation, environmental impacts and safety and security aspects. The proposed framework was applied to a pilot Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor infrastructure project in the city of Indore, India, in order to demonstrate its validity. The framework and its application could provide useful guidance when considering PPP for a transport project, since it demonstrates in a transparent way the society's attitude towards this project, something that is critical to its acceptance.     

Are Longer and Heavier Vehicles (LHVs) Beneficial for Society? A Cost Benefit Analysis to Evaluate their Potential Implementation in Spain

Abstract

In this paper we carry out a thorough review of the current research related to the benefits and costs arising from the implementation of longer and heavier vehicles (LHVs). From this review we concluded that despite the many studies available, little has been said about the sensitivity of the benefits and costs to the ultimate performance of the key variables related to the evolution of the economy, road transport performance, safety, and so on. In order to fill this gap, we have designed a sensitivity approach based on a cost benefit analysis tool to determine which variables demonstrate the greatest influence on the benefits and costs stemming from the implementation of LHVs. In order to test the methodology, we have used it in an analysis of the Spanish trunk network. The results show that the benefits of LHVs for society are significant. Even in the least favorable scenario, the economic benefits are greater than €3500 million over 15 years, and the environment enhanced as well, for CO₂ emissions are reduced by 2 Million tonnes. Overall we noted how the results are not very sensitive to the evolution of key variables in determining the final outcome. However, we found that the variables that have the greatest affect on the final benefit, such as traffic growth and social discount rate, depend basically on the performance of the overall economy. Moreover, the private cost for haulers seems to be more important in determining the final benefit than externality costs.     

Determining strategies to increase response rates in transport surveys of small shop-based businesses

Increasing representation of small business perspectives in policy research would benefit from identifying strategies to increase response rates. Despite the significance of the issue, there is inconsistent reporting amongst small business research about issues such as sampling, recruitment and survey design. Reporting on such issues may help address the under-representation of small business respondents and help reduce wasting research resources on less effective strategies. For policy matters that have the potential to disrupt how small business owners run their business, this is of particular importance. This paper reports on a survey of small businesses about changes to the transport accessibility features of a town centre that have the potential to affect the supply of car parking. Based on a review of the available literature, strategies were adopted to reduce respondent burden and maximise engagement. The paper presents an analysis of recruitment approaches in the first wave of the survey and demonstrates how the refinements to the recruitment approach were successful in achieving an increase in response rate from 40% to 47%.     

What Curriculum for Mobility and Transport Studies? A Critical Exploration

To understand the complex meanings of mobility and to engage in transport planning and management processes, a variety of disciplines, skills, and tools are potentially useful. Universities have a limited amount of time and resources to train future professionals though. This poses a problem: where should the teaching priorities be? By means of a web-survey, this study has asked academics based at a number of universities what the disciplines, skills, and tools that — according to their personal viewpoints — are the most relevant for practitioners in the mobility and transport sector. The respondents generally support curricula that facilitate a holistic, non-specialised, understanding of mobility and transport issues.     

Valuation of environmental externalities: from theory to decision‐making

Valuation of externalities is a condition for correct investment and pricing decisions in transport. This paper provides a brief survey of the main studies achieved in OECD countries in order to get these valuations. Numerical values for the average social cost of transport are presented. The procedures according to which environment is taken into account in France and Italy are analyzed, and the importance of valuation in these procedures is assessed. Finally, prospects for further research and new developments are expressed.     

Development of an intelligent CAE system for auto-body concept design

The concept design phase is a critical step in auto-body design, as it has a great effect on later design work. This paper describes the implementation of an auto-body structure design in the early stages of a new auto-body developing program. In order to reduce the long design period and analysis error that plagues traditional auto-body concept design, an intelligent CAE system has been successfully developed and implemented based on the UGS NX/API opening platform. This system, the so-called ACD-ICAE (Auto-body concept design-intelligent computer aided engineering) System that means concept design-intelligent computer aided engineering system, employs a fully parametrized template method to build the conceptual auto-body geometry model and FEM model quickly and easily. It also integrates auto-body modeling, analysis and optimization on only one CAD platform via a parametric variables database. Moreover, all parametric variables are shared and updated in different phases of the ACD-ICAE System. A wizard User Interface (UI) based on knowledge of auto-body engineering was developed and used in this system. The procedures implementing the functional diagram of the ACD-ICAE system are also provided. A typical example of a car body concept design with four doors shows that the ACD-ICAE system is efficient and accurate.     

Rising Sea Levels: Helping Decision-Makers Confront the Inevitable

Sea-level rise (SLR) is not just a future trend; it is occurring now in most coastal regions across the globe. It thus impacts not only long-range planning in coastal environments, but also emergency preparedness. Its inevitability and irreversibility on long time scales, in addition to its spatial non-uniformity, uncertain magnitude and timing, and capacity to drive non-stationarity in coastal flooding on planning and engineering timescales, create unique challenges for coastal risk-management decision processes. This review assesses past United States federal efforts to synthesize evolving SLR science in support of coastal risk management. In particular, it outlines the: (1) evolution in global SLR scenarios to those using a risk-based perspective that also considers low-probability but high-consequence outcomes, (2) regionalization of the global scenarios, and (3) use of probabilistic approaches. It also describes efforts to further contextualize regional scenarios by combining local mean sea-level changes with extreme water level projections. Finally, it offers perspectives on key issues relevant to the future uptake, interpretation, and application of sea-level change scenarios in decision-making. These perspectives have utility for efforts to craft standards and guidance for preparedness and resilience measures to reduce the risk of coastal flooding and other impacts related to SLR.     

Simulation of turbulent effective wakes for propellers in off-design conditions by a correction factor approach

Journal of Marine Science and Technology - This paper presents a procedure for the estimation of propeller effective wakes in oblique flows. It shows how a recently developed method for controlling...