Managing coastal resources often means making hard decisions about the best way to use those resources. For example, should a community
- Maintain green space or build more homes?
- Develop a new marina or keep the existing oyster beds?
- Construct a mall that would draw in new industry or preserve the wetland?
Although there is no simple way to answer these questions, economic methods can help coastal resource managers understand the trade-offs and make better-informed decisions.
A new publication from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Services Center provides basic information about the economic principles used in the field of coastal resource management. “Introduction to Economics for Coastal Managers” will be available in the fall of 2009.
According to the publication, competing demands for coastal resources are at the heart of most coastal resource management issues, and community leaders are often asked to decide what makes the most sense for a community in terms of social, environmental, and economic needs.
When making these decisions, officials can use economic tools to express the value of various alternatives in common terms (usually dollars) so that an “apples to apples” comparison can be made.
This is important because development tends to generate benefits that are easy to count and understand, while conservation tends to generate benefits that seem less tangible but which are nonetheless extremely important, including storm protection, water filtration, aesthetics, recreational benefits, and wildlife habitat.
Just as coastal management is complex, so is the use of economics. No single method is appropriate for all situations, so an understanding of the relevant economic methods is helpful.
This publication provides that overview, covering market and non-market values, benefit-cost analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, and incremental analysis. Several case studies give readers the real-life examples that move the concepts from theory to practice.
“Only when the true value of a coastal resource is known can one make the best decisions for the long term,” says Pete Wiley, the NOAA employee who co-authored the document with fellow NOAA economist Jeff Adkins.
“The decision might be to leave the resource alone, develop it, or design a partial development plan with fewer impacts,” Wiley says. “The goal is to fully understand the benefits and costs of each alternative so that wise decisions can be made.
“We don’t want to trade off things in the short term that will actually serve the community more when taking a long-range view. That’s not what coastal management is about.”
To obtain a free copy of “Introduction to Economics for Coastal Managers,” contact the NOAA Coastal Services Center by e-mailing Donna McCaskill at Donna.Mccaskill@noaa.gov.
