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Pebble Beach Golf Links, Monterey Peninsula
No full textBuilt in 1919, Pebble Beach Golf Links faces severe storm damage in face of sea level rise. Most or all of the rise can be attributed to global warming, which warms and expands global oceans, and causes glaciers and ice sheets to decay. Photo courtesy of Judith Kildow.https://cbe.miis.edu/homepage_carousel/1016/thumbnail.jp
The Political Economy of Oil Spill Damage Assessment: NRDA and Deepwater Horizon
Get PDFThe federal effort to quantify and capture non-market damages to coastal ecosystems from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Phase II of United States of America v. BP Exploration and Production, centers on the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process. This paper makes the case that the current NRDA process has done a poor job protecting the public interest and resolving the issues surrounding oil spills from deep water drilling activities. After 5 years, the findings of the NRDA still remain sealed from both affected maritime communities and academic researchers until litigation is settled with civil and criminal fines for BP’s Clean Water Act violations and damages to coastal ecosystems. This multi-year legal process further retards progress in using the latest science to inform policy for the future of proposed off-shore oil activities, including introducing new regulations that would subject semi-submersible oil platforms to the same rigor as oil tankers. Using historical comparisons, this paper examines how the political economy of legal procedures and damage assessment processes has created winners and losers in the aftermath of DWH, especially with respect to the Vietnamese-American ethnic maritime community. Finally, proposals are suggested how the regulatory landscape, and specifically the NRDA process, might be improved to strengthen transparency, better inform policies in a timely fashion, and encompass cultural resources
Deep Sea Mining Threatens Ocean Ecosystems
No full textRare earth metals are found in or on the seabed, and a growing number of governments and companies are developing deep seabed mining ventures for mineral exploration. Mining could devastate biodiversity hotspots as sediment waste and pollution from toxic heavy metals are discharged. Photo courtesy of Nautilus.https://cbe.miis.edu/homepage_carousel/1024/thumbnail.jp
Nonmarket Value of Waves
No full textThe thousands of miles of coastline in America, with majestic beaches and diverse marine wildlife, are some of the nation\u27s most enduring treasures. Photo courtesy of Judith Kildow.https://cbe.miis.edu/homepage_carousel/1018/thumbnail.jp
Severe Beach Erosion at South Nags Head, NC (2009)
No full textLandowners who build near the shore are at risk of losing their property to coastal erosion and tides as surges become ever higher in face of sea level rise and climate change. Photo Courtesy Craig Landry.https://cbe.miis.edu/homepage_carousel/1026/thumbnail.jp
Local Economies Evolve in Face of Seafood Declines
No full textEconomies in small coastal communities in the Northeastern U.S. have evolved as supplies of lobster and other seafood decline precipitously. Courtesy Charles Colgan.https://cbe.miis.edu/homepage_carousel/1014/thumbnail.jp
The Gap between Science and Policy: Assessing the Use of Non-market Valuation in Estuarine Management
Get PDFEstuaries, which are among the most productive natural systems on earth, provide an array of human welfare benefits if well managed. Non-market valuation (NMV) is considered a powerful tool, which can contribute to informed policies for estuarine management. More than 30 year of research valuing estuaries around the world does not appear to have had a major impact on estuarine management. Published examples of policy applications using estimates from these studies, are rare, leading to the question whether the effort and money spent on this research has been useful and worth the cost. Despite raising public awareness of the importance of estuaries, NMV should play a wider and more influential role in estuarine management. Our research assumes there is a gap between economic studies and their use in policy decisions. We identify the gap, address the size of the gap, and reasons for it. Our research also seeks to understand the reasons why these values are not used more in the decision making process. In this paper, we review current literature, and report on a survey of key personnel from two US agencies, NOAA and EPA, that oversee estuaries and sanctuaries, and we will summarize their observations regarding why there is a gap. As an emerging field for many around the world, NMV is receiving increasing attention in China where estuarine resources are threatened by a multitude of human activities. We explore how and whether China can draw lessons from the US cases we have studied and what benefits China can expect from doing NMV studies and encouraging their results be used in Chinese estuarine management
Valuing improvements to coastal waters using choice experiments: an application to revisions of the EU Bathing Waters Directive
Get PDFPlanned changes to the European Union’s Bathing Waters Directive (2006/7 EC) will force member states to produce improvements in a number of parameters of coastal water quality. This study uses the choice experiment method to estimate the economic benefits attached to such improvements, based on a sample of recreationalists on beaches in Ireland. The analysis indicates that improvements in all of the bathing water related attributes studied result in positive willingness to pay, and also show evidence of scope effects. Using random parameters and latent class modelling techniques, potential heterogeneity in preferences is then investigated and shown to be present to a significant degree. One observable determinant of this preference heterogeneity is the degree of exposure of individuals to health risks relating to water quality, as proxied by the type of recreational activity they undertake
Blue Growth in the Middle Kingdom: an analysis of China’s Ocean Economy
Get PDFA nation’s economy has been described as a mechanical engine comprised of interconnected, moving parts [1]. In China, the ocean economy is now seen as a critical component of that engine. Following the reform of economic trade policy, especially in the period 2001-2010, China’s ocean economy has been growing rapidly, in line with national GDP. Also, as the second largest economy in the world, China is paying more and more attention to the sustainable development of its ocean economy. One important reason for this is that since joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), Chinese trade with other nations has steadily expanded as a proportion of national economic activity, to the point where it affects approximately 70% of China’s economy [2]. China also has access to a significant marine resource base with a coastline of more than 32,000 km [3] and more than 7,300 islands [4] in its territorial waters. Coupled with this, China has sovereign jurisdiction over a vast area of continental shelves and exclusive economic zones (EEZs) (as defined by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea) equal to approximately 3 million km2 of offshore waters and 32,000 kilometers of coastline. China also has marine oil reserves of an estimated 24 billion tons and natural gas reserves of over 1.6 billion cubic meters [5]. Seaborne commerce is one of the most essential elements of international trade in China. According to Cheng [6], “without trade, China could not sustain its economy, let alone maintain the growth rates necessary to maintain high employment figures”. Ocean commerce in 2008 alone represented approximately 10% of China’s gross domestic product (GDP), with a value of approximately $456 billion. Moreover, some 85% of its international trade moves by the sea lanes [2]. China’s increasing reliance on oil imports to sustain its rapid economic expansion is a key element of this marine commerce. China imported over half of the oil it consumed in 2009, the majority of which was transported by tankers [7]. Since the land resources in China, as well as other countries around the world, are increasingly on the verge of economic and ecological exhaustion, the value of the oceans as a resource for economic development has become increasingly more prominent. A number of coastal countries have launched programs explicitly aimed at strategic initiatives for the development of their ocean resources. China has been no exception in this regard. In 1996 the Chinese government unveiled the China Ocean Agenda 21 which put forward a sustainable development strategy for China\u27s marine resources. The main aims of this strategy were to effectively safeguard the state\u27s marine rights and interests internationally, provide protection for delicate marine ecosystems and realize the sustainable development of China’s ocean economy. With the aim of furnishing marine policy makers in China with marine activity related statistics, the Ocean Economy Accounting System (OEAS）of China was established in 2006. The purpose of the system was to develop the required range and quality of ocean economy data at regional and national level. This paper provides a critique of this system and also uses it to define and quantify the ocean economy in China. While Song et al. [8] have previously examined the developments in the Chinese marine economic statistical system over the past 20 years we add to the literature by examining how the industries within the Chinese marine economy has changed in both value and in terms of the numbers employed over the period 2001 to 2010. We also compare the Chinese OEAS to the marine economic accounting system used in the US and examine how closely the Chinese ocean economy follows the general movement in Chinese GDP. In what follows, this paper first reviews Chinese marine policy that resulted in the increased need for reliable and standardized ocean economy statistics. The development of the OEAS is then described along with the accounts that the system is comprised of. The definition and value of the ocean industries in China and their relevant importance to the overall Chinese economy are then compared to the definition for ocean economy industries in the US and Europe
The role of the ocean industry in the Chinese national economy: An input-output analysis
Get PDFThe OEAS (Ocean Economy Accounting System) has been established in China for 6 years. However, the economic impact of the ocean economy in China’s national economy has not yet been understood clearly at the national or regional levels. The direct impact of ocean industries in China at national and regional levels has been compiled for the period of 2001-2011, but it is still unclear what the overall economic impacts of ocean industries are in the national economy, and how the ocean industries interact with other industries in the national economy. China is similar to other ocean countries in that, - as Colgan [5] suggests that ”knowledge of the marine economy is very imprecise because little has been invested in developing the needed data, especially in comparison with the investment in understanding of other natural resources .”
Input-Output (I-O) analysis is applied in this research in order to get the whole picture of the ocean economy in China. Information on an industry’s linkages with the rest of the economy helps us to better understand the structure of an economy and how it changes over time, which in turn is important in formulating industrial policies [6-11]. Input-output analysis has been around for decades in various disciplines of economics and is widely used by researchers, policy analysts, and practitioners. Multipliers are used to calculate the overall economic impact of a project or policy change. Two types of multipliers are commonly used, type I multipliers measure the industrial response to the change while type II multipliers measure the consumption-induced response in addition to the industrial response.
This paper aims to provide decision-makers, planners, industry and the general public with a measure of the relative economic importance of the ocean. To this end, this paper has two specific objectives: The first is to develop an I-O framework for examining the role of the ocean industry in China. The second goal is to develop a preliminary indication of the size of the ocean industry in China.
The paper continues as follows: Section 2 provides an overview of the ocean economy and major industries in China and the basis for selecting these industries. Section 3 provides a formal overview of the economic impacts evaluation methodologies of four main coastal countries, and tries to find a proper evaluation method for China. Section 4 describes the data requirements, data limitations, and data used in this paper. Section 5 presents the results of the I-O analysis in terms of multipliers and linkages for the ocean sector. Section 6 offers some concluding comments on the analysis