Synergies between Adjacent Beach-Nourishing Communities in a Morpho-Economic Coupled Coastline Model

Beach “nourishment” consists of placing sand on an eroding beach. The widened beach provides increased storm protection to adjacent structures and improved recreational benefits, but is most often transient, requiring on-going, repeated nourishment episodes. Numerical models of beach nourishment typically address such questions as how long a widened beach will last; economic models compare the benefits and costs of preserving a stretch of beach without regard to its geomorphic evolution. Neither have addressed the physical nor economic interactions between adjacent nourishing communities. Here, we couple a numerical model of coastline evolution and a cost-benefit model of beach nourishment, allowing adjacent communities to make dynamic nourishment decisions. Beach nourishment benefits adjacent communities both “updrift” and “downdrift.” The total amount of money spent on nourishment activities can decrease by as much as 25% when adjacent communities both conduct on-going nourishment projects, as opposed to the case where each community nourishes in isolation.     

Protecting Rhode Island's coastal salt ponds: An economic assessment of downzoning

Abstract

In southern Rhode Island, there is growing concern that housing and recreational demands will soon overwhelm the capacity of the coastal salt ponds to absorb wastes, produce seafood, and maintain scenic qualities. As a result, coastal towns have been studying the feasibility of using land controls such as downzoning to protect these coastal amenities. The paper presents an economic analysis of the downzoning program proposed in the town of South Kingstown. Hedonic price and contingent valuation methods are used to value coastal amenities. The estimated net present value of “swimmable” water is shown to be $3.1 million.     

The problems of hydrocarbon extraction

The problems associated with hydrocarbon extraction in the EEZ are discussed under the headings of resources and environment, technology and the industrial structure, government management, decision-making, and policy formulation. Policy areas identified include boundary delimitation relative to resources, environment and technology, co-ordination and decision-making machinery, relationships with UK and EEC energy policies, and regional planning of the sea and coastal areas used by the off-shore industry.     

Collaborative Management of Natural Resources in San Diego Bay

This article presents the results of a three-year effort at applying information technology to the problem of collaborative natural resource management in San Diego Bay. As such, it represents an approach to integrated coastal zone management (ICZM). This effort resulted from a collaboration between the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego and the San Diego Bay Interagency Water Quality Panel for the purpose of (1) developing an environmental data repository to facilitate the acquisition and sharing of data and (2) the development of a visual model of the bay in support of the development of a comprehensive, coordinated management plan for San Diego Bay. It was determined from this study that information technology is an important and key component to ICZM but that sociopolitical factors may override the benefits of decision-support systems and should be considered at the outset of any project of this kind.     

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.     

Determinants of motor vehicle crash fatalities using Bayesian model selection methods

Motor vehicle crashes continue to result in large numbers of fatalities each year and represent the leading cause of death for young persons. In 2006, for example, there were over 42,700 fatalities associated with these crashes. Understanding the causes of these crashes and methods to reduce them continues to be of great interest to economists, public health officials, and policy makers. We present in this paper statistical models using a rich set of panel data covering the period 1980 to 2007 by state and the District of Columbia. Our choice of variables is based on an extensive literature highlighting the importance of policy, safety, demographic, and economic determinants of fatality rates.     

The continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone: the problem of delimitation at UNCLOS III

If the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea succeeds in adopting a new Caracas Convention on the Law of the Sea, it is likely to embody detailed provisions on the delimitation of both the continental shelf and the new zone, the exclusive economic zone. In this paper, the most recent draft of these rules—contained in the Revised Single Negotiating Text—is subjected to a detailed and critical scrutiny which leads to the conclusion that the Sixth Session of the Conference still has a great deal of work to do before agreement can be reached on a satisfactory set of rules.     

Identification of potential sites for deep-ocean waste isolation with a geographic site-selection model

Identification of optimal sites for the isolation of waste on the abyssal seafloor was performed with two approaches: by the traditional method of map overlays of relevant attributes, and by a specially developed, automated Site-Selection Model (SSM). Five initial, Surrogate Sites, identified with the map-overlay approach, were then compared with the more rigorously produced scores from the SSM. The SSM, a process for optimization of site locations, accepts subjective, expert-based judgments and transforms them into a quantitative, reproducible, and documented product. The SSM is adaptable to any siting scenario. Forty-one factors relevant to the isolation scenario, including 21 weightable factors having a total of 123 scorable categories, have been entered into the SSM. Factors are grouped under project definition, unique environments, anthropogenic, geologic, biologic, weather, oceanographic and distance criteria. The factor scores are linked to a georeferenced database array of all factors, corresponding to 1°×1° latitude–longitude squares. The SSM includes a total of 2241 one-degree squares within 1000 n.m. of the U.S. coasts, including the western North Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the eastern North Pacific. Under a carefully weighted and scored scenario of isolation, the most favorable sites identified with the SSM are on the Hatteras and Nares Abyssal Plains in the Atlantic. High-scoring sites are also located in the Pacific abyssal hills province between the Murray and Molokai Fracture Zones. Acceptable 1° squares in the Gulf of Mexico are few and of lower quality, with the optimum location on the northern Sigsbee Abyssal Plain. Two of the five Surrogate Site locations, on the Hatteras and Sigsbee Abyssal Plains, correspond to the best SSM sites in each ocean area. Two Pacific and a second Atlantic Surrogate Site are located in low-scoring regions or excluded by the SSM. Site-selection results from the SSM, although robust, are an initial attempt to quantify the site-selection process. The SSM database exposes a significant lack of high-quality information for many areally mappable attributes on the abyssal seafloor, particularly bottom-current speed and measures of biologic productivity and flux. Terminologies and classifications of some measures, such as sediment types, suffer from parochialism and vary by ocean. Considerable research is needed even for a broad understanding of the environmental measures required to make sound societal decisions about use of the abyssal seafloor for disposal or other purposes.     

20世纪美国应对机动性的交通构想及高速公路发展历程

为了阐述20世纪除汽车机动性外,交通发展经历的最重要的进程——城市高速公路的出现,考察了过去100年来美国城市交通规划的历史。通过回顾各种研究资料,认为资助州际公路发展所采用的方法使联邦和州公路工程师成为主管,这影响了公路的选线及设计。联邦公路工程师只关注机动车通过效率的最大化,而在很大程度上忽略了城市的其他利害关系。没有先进的规划理念指导、过度建设、稀疏、放射环状的道路网对于加强机动性取得了极大的效益,但通常要为此付出巨大的社会和环境成本。最后指出,在实践中要重新审视具有百年历史的协调交通与土地利用规划的观点,而且,公共财政权宜之计式的政治决策方式将对工程、出行和城市形态产生深远的影响。·