The status of seagrass beds in the coastal county of Lamu, Kenya

Biodiversity assessments within seagrass beds were conducted in six sites in Lamu, Kenya; namely, Kiweni, Tauzi, Wange, Ntopate, Manda toto and Ngoi. The objective of the assessment was to collect baseline information of the seagrasses of Lamu County in Kenya. Our findings revealed that nine out of the twelve seagrass species found in Kenya were found in the study sites. The dominant seagrass species Thalassodendron ciliatum was found to occur in deeper subtidal areas, while the pioneering species occurred in intertidal shallower areas. Average shoot densities per site ranged from 2.4 ± 1.7 shoots m-2 of Cymodocea serrulata to 1025.9 ± 139.3 shoots m-2 of Syringodium isoetifolium in Ngoi. Canopy heights ranged from 0.1 ± 0.1 cm of Halodule ovalis in Tauzi to 16.3±1.3.5 cm of Syringodium isoetifolium in Ngoi. Although the seagrass species characteristics were much lower than that found in similar mangrove fringed seagrass beds of Gazi Bay, the majority of the fish found in these seagrass areas were invertivores which indicates that these seagrass sites form a refugia for adult fish populations with nursery grounds being located elsewhere. This study forms the first comprehensive assessment of the seagrasses of Lamu and it provides important baseline information on seagrass beds. Such biodiversity information provides important support for decision-making for coastal areas that are targeted for infrastructural development such as Lamu. Biodiversity information of such critical habitats form a critical data base for marine spatial planning and can be used to effectively guide the integration of biodiversity and coastal livelihoods in the sustainable development of Kenya’s coastal areas.

Gulf of Mexico Coastal County Resilience to Natural Hazards

Using a Cumulative Resilience Screening Index (CRSI) that was developed to represent resilience to natural hazards at multiple scales for the United States, the U.S. coastal counties of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) region of the United States are compared for resilience for these types of natural hazards. The assessment compares the domains, indicators and metrics of CRSI, addressing environmental, economic and societal aspects of resilience to natural hazards at county scales. The index was applied at the county scale and aggregated to represent states and two regions of the U.S. GOM coastline. Assessments showed county—level resilience in all GOM counties was low, generally below the U.S. average. Comparisons showed higher levels of resilience in the western GOM region while select counties in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama exhibited the lowest resilience (<2.0) to natural hazards. Some coastal counties in Florida and Texas represented the highest levels of resilience seen along the GOM coast. Much of this increased resilience appears to be due to higher levels of governance and broader levels of social, economic and ecological services.

VALUING OPEN SPACE IN A MARSHLAND ENVIRONMENT: DEVELOPMENT ALTERNATIVES FOR COASTAL GEORGIA

In a coastal environment, open space can exist as land set aside by a real estate developer or as tidal marshland. In this article, we determine the relative values of both types of open spaces in a coastal county in Georgia using a spatial hedonic price framework. Results indicate that (1) there is a price premium associated with the marshlands and (2) developers have market incentives to incorporate more open space into their designs of residential subdivisions. Regarding marshlands, we also find that accessibility is an important variable that adds much more value to a property than just the proximity.

Property owners’ attitudes toward sustainable tourism: Comparing coastal and mountain counties

This study explored factors influencing property owners’ attitudes toward tourism development in two very different counties in North Carolina: one coastal (n = 854) and one in the mountains (n = 619). Attitudes toward the impact of tourism and sustainable tourism development were compared for permanent and second-home residents and between the two counties. Findings include the fact that 22% of property owners in the coast and 12.8% of property owners in the mountains thought that the impact of tourism in their community was such that they wished they lived or owned property elsewhere. Permanent homeowners were more likely than second homeowners to have this opinion. Second homeowners in both counties perceived that they had little or no influence over tourism-related issues, a perception stronger in the coastal county than mountain.

A Novel Financial Market for Mitigating Hurricane Risk. Part II: Empirical Validation

This paper explores the empirical features of a novel commodity option trading instrument described in the companion paper (Part I) that allows market participants to hedge against the risk that a coastal county or region in the eastern United States will experience a hurricane landfall. In this instrument investors can speculate on whether a landfall event will occur in any one of a number of coastal counties or regions, with option prices being determined by an adaptive control algorithm that reflects previous purchasing decisions of other market participants. In this paper, the authors report the results of an experiment designed to test the empirical robustness of this mechanism using data from traders buying landfall options over the course of a simulated hurricane season. In the experiment traders are given the opportunity to buy landfall options in the primary market as well as sell and buy options in a conventional bilateral secondary market. The data show that aggregate market prices quickly converge to rational (efficient) levels among market participants after limited amounts of trading experience. Some systematic anomalies are observed in the trading of options for individual outcomes, however, with the most notable being an initial tendency to overvalue landfall options that have the highest prior probabilities and for valuations of the “No Landfall” option to be inflated immediately after a storm threat passes without making landfall.