Judicial Interpretations of Federal Consistency under the Coastal Zone Management Act

The federal consistency provision of the Coastal Zone Management Act (1972) created a new form of interaction between federal and state governments. The implementation of this provision has significant ramifications for coastal management and intergovernmental cooperation in the United States. Past studies have focused on the provision's implementation patterns among U.S. coastal states and federal-state disputes mediated by the Secretary of Commerce. This supplemental article examines judicial interpretations of the federal consistency provision over the past two decades in relation to major issues deliberated by Congress at the time of enactment. Recent changes in the provision, as well as those unresolved issues likely to resurface in future litigation, are also discussed. Seemingly, coastal land use authority and offshore energy exploration remain the most contentious issues surrounding the federal consistency provision.     

A system for determining economic loss associated with estuary degradation

Abstract

This article suggests a method of estimating economic losses for estuary‐dependent faunal species under conditions whereby the impact of a given degrading development on a particular estuary has a significant degree of uncertainty associated with it. The approach draws on standard theories from a variety of disciplines to provide an operational procedure capable of joint application by biologists, economists, and other related disciplines with working responsibility in the subject area. Consideration is given to probability estimation of possible impacts, sensitivity to underlying assumptions, and decisional safety under conditions of uncertainty. Applied results are demonstrated in a simulation of a negative developmental impact on the estuary‐dependent salmon resources of the Fraser River in British Columbia.     

Houston-Galveston Navigation Channel: Blueprint for the Beneficial Uses of Dredge Material

The beneficial uses of dredge material from the Houston-Galveston Navigation Channel (HGNC) to create large-scale wetlands represents a blueprint for other large U.S. ports. The port authority's interagency coordination team, the Beneficial Uses Group (BUG), successfully developed an innovative 50-year plan to deal with dredge material disposal from the channel widening and maintenance project. The creation of intertidal wetlands will initiate the restoration of the United States' second most productive estuary, in concert with the Galveston Bay National Estuary Plan, while capturing increasingly scarce government financing for port maintenance and improvement operations. An overview of the various beneficial uses of dredge material in the HGNC enlarging project is presented with a detailed investigation of the Bayport Demonstration Marsh. The HGNC project is analyzed as a prototype for successful extensive wetland creation ventures, and several key design criteria for similar large-scale marsh creation projects are given.     

Information Management in Beach Planning

Abstract

This article concerns optimizing the use of environmental information for creative planning. It arose from a detailed study of the status and management of the coastal dunes of New South Wales, Australia, and discusses the way in which ideas for optimizing the management process were developed, and applied to three beach environments on the coast of New South Wales, Australia.

The problem of coastal beach/dune management may be thought of as being similar to a production function in which the inputs are the land resource, the skills and knowledge of managers, finance, and materiel. The outcomes are in the form of experiences, or opportunities for experiences, either passive or active, either consumption values or option values, desired by the coastal user population (which includes the resource managers themselves). The resource manager's task is to manipulate the “production function”; in order that the outputs will best mesh with the expectations of the user population and with the capability of the land resource to deliver on a sustained basis. An aim of the project was to develop a method for the specification of different possible outputs from the production function, in different beach/dune environments, and that could be used to assist in the preparation of advice on appropriate recreational development, allowing decisions to be based on both environmental data and information on the expectations, activities, and amenity preferences of beach users.     

Abrolhos 2000 : Conserving the Southern Atlantic's Richest Coastal Biodiversity into the Next Century

The Abrolhos bank, an area of continental shelf off the coast of Bahia, Brazil, has the most biologically diverse coral reefs in the entire southern Atlantic Ocean. The coral reefs and nearby coastal ecosystems constitute a global conservation priority and are the target of the Abrolhos 2000 project, initiated by Conservation International as part of its global marine conservation strategy. Although portions of the Abrolhos reefs are located within a marine park, they are not afforded adequate protection due to insufficient conservation resources and a failure to be part of a broader integrated coastal management program. Through partnerships with government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, local communities, the private sector, and other stakeholders, Abrolhos 2000 is working to provide these needs while establishing local capacity for conserving coastal and marine ecosystems. The project's initial successes provide examples of useful strategies for making integrated coastal management work in the context of emerging economies.     

Comparing carbon dioxide emissions of trucking and intermodal container transport in Taiwan

This paper examines carbon dioxide emissions of truck-only transportation using activity-based emission modelling and compares those with intermodal coastal shipping and truck movements. The results reveal that replacing long-haul truck transport with the intermodal can significantly reduce carbon dioxide emission significantly because of the efficiency of maritime fuel.     

Thorium-234 derived information on particle residence times and sediment deposition in shallow waters of the south-western Baltic Sea

Activities of the naturally occurring, short-lived and highly particle-reactive radionuclide tracer ²³⁴Th in the dissolved and particulate phase were measured at three shallow-water stations (maximum water depths: 15.6, 22.7 and 30.1 m) in Mecklenburg Bay (south-western Baltic Sea) to constrain the time scales of the dynamics and the depositional fate of particulate matter. Activities of particle-associated (> 0.4 μm) and total (particulate + dissolved) ²³⁴Th were in the range of 0.08–0.11 dpm L^− 1 and 0.11–0.20 dpm L^− 1, respectively. The activity ratio of total ²³⁴Th and its long-lived and conservative parent nuclide ²³⁸U was well below unity (range: 0.09–0.19) indicating substantial radioactive disequilibria throughout the water column, very dynamic trace-metal scavenging and particle export from the water column at all three stations. For the discussion the ²³⁴Th data of this study were combined with previously published water-column ²³⁴Th and particulate-matter data from Mecklenburg Bay (Kersten et al., 1998. Applied Geochemistry 13, 339–347). The resulting average vertical distribution of total ²³⁴Th/²³⁸U disequilibria was used to estimate the depositional ²³⁴Th flux to the sediment. There was a virtually constant net downward flux of ²³⁴Th of about 28 dpm m^− 2 d^− 1 leaving each water layer of one meter thickness. Thorium-234-derived net residence times of particulate material regarding settling from a given layer in the water column were typically on the order of days, but with maximum values of up to a couple of weeks. Based on an average ratio of particulate matter (PM) to particle-associated ²³⁴Th a net flux of about 145 mg PM m^− 2 d^− 1 was estimated to leave each water layer of one meter thickness. The estimated cumulative water-column-derived particulate-matter fluxes at the seafloor are higher by a factor of about 2 than previously published sediment-derived estimates for Mecklenburg Bay. This suggests that about half of the settling particulate material is exported from the study area and/or subject to processes such as mechanical breakdown, remineralisation and dissolution. Lateral particulate-matter redistribution and particle breakdown in the water column (as opposed to the sediment) seem to be favoured by (repeated) particle resuspension from and resettling to the seafloor before ultimate sedimentary burial. The importance of net lateral redistribution of particulate material seems to increase towards the seafloor and be particularly high within the bottommost few meters of the water column.     

Turbulence in coastal fronts near the mouths of Block Island and Long Island Sounds

Measurements of turbulence were performed in four frontal locations near the mouths of Block Island Sound (BIS) and Long Island Sound (LIS). These measurements extend from the offshore front associated with BIS and Mid-Atlantic Bight Shelf water, to the onshore fronts near the Montauk Point (MK) headland, and the Connecticut River plume front. The latter feature is closely associated with the major fresh water input to LIS. Turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) dissipation rate, ε, was obtained using shear probes mounted on an autonomous underwater vehicle. Offshore, the BIS estuarine outflow front showed, during spring season and ebb tide, maximum TKE dissipation rate, ε, estimates of order 10^− 5 W/kg, with background values of order 10^− 6 to 10^− 9 W/kg. Edwards et al. [Edwards, C.A., Fake, T.A., and Bogden, P.S., 2004a. Spring–summer frontogenesis at the mouth of Block Island Sound: 1. A numerical investigation into tidal and buoyancy-forced motion. Journal of Geophysical Research 109 (C12021), doi:10.1029/2003JC002132.] model this front as the boundary of a tidally driven, baroclinically adjusted BIS flow around the MK headland eddy. At the entrance to BIS, near MK, two additional fronts are observed, one of which was over sand waves. For the headland site front east of MK, without sand waves, during ebb tide, ε estimates of 10^− 5 to 10^− 6 W/kg were observed. The model shows that this front is at the northern end of an anti-cyclonic headland eddy, and within a region of strong tidal mixing. For the headland site front further northeast over sand waves, maximum ε estimates were of order 10^− 4 W/kg within a background of order 10^− 7–10^− 6 W/kg. From the model, this front is at the northeastern edge of the anti-cyclonic headland eddy and within the tidal mixing zone. For the Connecticut River plume front, a surface trapped plume, during ebb tide, maximum ε estimates of 10^− 5 W/kg were obtained, within a background of 10^− 6 to 10^− 8 W/kg. Of all four fronts, the river plume front has the largest finescale mean-square shear, S² ~ 0.15 s^− 2. All of the frontal locations had local values of the buoyancy Reynolds number indicating strong isotropic turbulence at the dissipation scales. Local values of the Froude number indicated shear instability in all of the fronts.     

有负顾客的M/G/1重试可修排队系统的极限分布

利用马尔可夫骨架过程和Doob骨架过程及其极限理论,主要给出了有负顾客的M/G/1重试可修排队系统队长的极限分布.     

Integrating natural and socio-economic science in coastal management

The future more sustainable management of coastal resources is an important policy goal for all governments of countries with coastlines. Coastal areas are under intense environmental change pressure with extensive feedback effects between the natural systems and the human systems. It could be argued that there is just one jointly determined and coevolving system that needs to be studied and managed. Understanding the interactions between the coastal zone and environmental change cannot be achieved by observational studies alone. Modelling of key environmental and socio-economic processes is a vital tool, required to buttress coastal management institutions and practice. Three overlapping procedural stages can be identified in the coastal resource assessment process. The scoping and auditing stage, implemented via a ‘pressure–state–impact–response’ framework, details, among other thing, problems, system boundaries and value conflicts. The framework is itself based on a conceptual model, which lays stress on functional value diversity and the links between ecosystem processes, functions and outputs of goods and services which are deemed ‘valuable’ by society. The two subsequent stages are integrated modelling, combining natural and social science methodologies, and evaluation of management options and related gains and losses. An overview of a research project, which utilised the pressure–state–impacts–response (P–S–I–R) framework and supporting concepts and methods, is presented in the last section of the paper, together with some generic ‘lessons’ for interdisciplinary research.