First words

The earths oceans cover 67% of the total surface area of the earth. This is 2.3 times the total and area of the earth (source: WolframAlpha ). How do we interact with and manage these vast resources. Already many fisheries are under threat, coastlines are threatened through increased population growth, marine polluion is damaging coastal ecosystems and having impacts further out to sea. The ocean provides us with what the economists call amanity values as well as resources. The challenge is to learn how to live with this large part of the planet in a manner that allows us to enjoy what it has to offer without destroying it. This is what I am trying to address in this blog.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

coastal management and economics

The following primer produced by the NOAA coastal services center purports to introduce basic economic principles to coastal managers. The primer "Introduction to Economics for Coastal Managers", should probably be read with some care. I am not sure that it captures all the issues and I think that the recenly releass UK report by Surfers against Sewage 'The WAR report: Waves ae resources" raises a numbe of points that NOAA have missed.

 While it is not a bad introduction, it contains a little two much non-market valuation material for my tastes. Why does coastal management concentrate on non-market valuation so much? Within fisheries economics non-market valuation tends to be a minority perspective. I have seen some other research exploring coastal development from other perspectives perhaps I will post more on this at some future date.
Posted by The silent majority at 8:36 AM

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