Boyd Blackwell

The value of a recreational beach visit: an application to Mooloolaba Beach and comparisons with other outdoor recreation sites

Beaches and foreshores worldwide offer a broad range of goods and services to coastal communities and economies. One service, beach recreation, provides considerable benefits to most Australians. This paper represents the first Australian attempt to value a recreational visit to surf beaches within the local urban setting of Mooloolaba beach, Sunshine Coast, Queensland using a truncated negative binomial individual travel cost model. Income, on-site and off-site travel expenditure and time, party size, and employment status helped to explain visits. The consumer surplus estimates provided in this paper are within the bounds of the international literature. The passive-use values of beaches are higher than those of national parks or forests. Assessing beach non-use values is an area for future research.

The value of recreational surfing to society.

This article comments briefly on the origins of surfing and its growth through the 20th century, discusses the growth of participation in surfing, and then uses a range of social science techniques including observed market expenditure and nonmarket valuation to describe the socioeconomic value of surfing at various locations. The findings demonstrate the significant economic, social, and cultural importance of surfing amenity, the need to clearly articulate and measure changes in recreational amenity, and the need to consider any negative impacts on surf breaks and the natural environment that may occur as a result of development, coastal planning, and protection works.

Vulnerabilities and adaptation of ports to climate change

Climate change is anticipated to have a significant impact on coastal infrastructure, including navigational aids and ports. This paper presents the results of a vulnerability assessment of ports in Australia to climate change. Results reveal variable vulnerability in ports in the short and long term in relation to their exposure to climate change. However, this is offset by inherent adaptive capacity both in current climate change initiatives driven by ports, and in the self-confidence of the industry to be able to adapt. We conclude with a reflection on the implications of these results for future ports analyses.

Mining and other industry contributions to employment leakage in Australia's Northern Territory

Leakage of employment income is a pressing issue in the economic development of regional and remote communities. It can draw income away from regional economies but also inject new revenue from outside. Using Australian Bureau of Statistics 2011 census employment data by place of usual residence and place of work, we identify for all 17 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the Northern Territory (NT), workers commuting out of and into each LGA. Using summary graphs and geospatial visualizations we find that while there is substantial leakage out of most LGAs there are also gains from those leaving an LGA to work and then returning home with their income. Overall, for most LGAs and all remote LGAs there is net leakage. In contrast, Wagait, Palmerston, Litchfield and Alice Springs experience net gains from work commuting. Core-Periphery staples theory (Carson 2011) helps explain these net gaining LGAs, but cannot be used to consistently explain net leakage or net gain for population centers and nearby periphery LGAs. Darwin, including parts of Unincorporated NT, together act as a net leakage core to surrounding commuter LGAs such as Palmerston, Litchfield and Wagait. Katherine also acts as a net leakage core for surrounding peripheral LGAs despite receiving some offsetting employment income gains through mining. In addition to Katherine, Mining and the supporting Construction industry are also delivering net employment income gains to the core centers of Darwin, Palmerston, and Litchfield from periphery and typically remote LGAs. For remote mining commuters, these core centers offer preferred places to live. In contrast to Darwin and Katherine, Alice Springs acts as an employment income sink drawing on net employment gains from periphery remote LGAs. Our geospatial visualizations also help to identify the leakage vulnerability of remote LGAs dependent on mining like Central Desert and East Arnhem. Of all the remote LGAs, East Arnhem has the highest average net leakage of income across the most diversified distribution of industries, primarily derived from mining and its supporting construction and upstream manufacturing industries. Combined, these factors make East Arnhem particularly vulnerable to mining related downturns. Also, Alice Springs and Coomalie are highly vulnerable to commuting in Business Services and Public and Personal Services respectively. However, these vulnerabilities also cloak hidden flexibilities to deal with job losses during downturns. Undertaking our analysis for a number of census years could help decision makers build scenarios for future economic development and employment.

The Marginal Values of Lifesavers and Lifeguards to Beach Users in Australia and the United States

We estimate the marginal benefits of increasing lifesavers and lifeguards for beach users in Australia and the United States. Visits, income, education, age, distance from a patrol, and willingness to swim on an unpatrolled beach explain willingness to pay but rivalry does not; snob and bandwagon effects prevail. By comparing benefits with costs, the levels of lifeguards and lifesavers in Australia were found to be underprovided, consistent with shared good theory. Increasing services provides greater net benefits to users but replacing volunteer lifesavers with paid lifeguards may not because volunteering brings broader social benefits.

Beaches as societal assets: council expenditures, recreational returns, and climate change

Drawing on expenditure and survey data from the Gold and Sunshine Coasts in Queensland, Australia, this chapter compares expenditures on beaches relative to their recreational benefits. Beaches are found to be exceptional investments. The comparison of the two councils also provides insights into their relative capacity to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change. The Gold Coast can rely to some extent on historical large investments in infrastructure to defend itself against change. In contrast, the Sunshine Coast has more options which may lower the cost of adaptation e.g., it can rely more heavily on retreating from change in certain locations because of historical investment in dunal buffer zones. However, historical investment patterns impact in different ways on the environmental quality of beaches and the benefits provided to users and non-users. Limitations and areas of future research are also outlined.

Are our beaches safe? Quantifying the human health impact of anthropogenic beach litter on people in New Zealand

The environmental, social and cultural importance of beaches permeates human society, yet the risk of human injury associated with increasing exposure to anthropogenic beach litter remains an unknown. While the impact of marine debris and beach litter on marine and coastal fauna and flora is a widely reported global issue, we investigate the impact on human health in New Zealand. Anthropogenic beach litter is ubiquitous, few beaches remain pristine, which consequently influences tourist choices and potentially negatively interacts with humans. Human impacts are not well-investigated, with no quantitative studies of impact but many studies qualitatively inferring impact. New Zealand has a socialised medical system allowing a quantitative, decadal assessment of medical insurance claims to determine patterns and trends across ecosystems and causes. We demonstrate for the first time that anthropogenic beach litter poses a common and pervasive exposure hazard to all ages, with specific risk posed to young children. The New Zealand system allows these hazards to be investigated to determine the true effects and costs across a nation, providing an evidence base for decision-makers to address this ubiquitous environmental issue.

Good Gardening for a Perennial Economy: What's the Optimal Growth Path for a Regional Economy?

ABSTRACT:A key public policy issue in regional economic development is whether governments should act pro-actively with strategies to achieve local economic growth. Using an Australian region, this article presents projections that test a number of such scenarios to establish whether pro-active strategies of investment provide the greatest growth. When developing pro-active strategies for a given region, economic and community development planners typically target specific industries. Key industries can be identified on the basis of high relative employment growth rates and connectivity with other industries. The case region in this analysis, not unlike other regions in Australia and across the globe, has undergone significant restructuring in recent years with a shift in its economic base from agriculture to mining. In light of the shifting nature of the regional and national economies, this article provides a foundation for building planning perspectives for the future of a regional economy using economic and population projections and scenario analyses. These analyses help highlight industrial sectors that should be targeted in the region’s plans. Broader implications for regional economic development and planning generally are also drawn from the case experience. Developing projections for the growth of regional economies is no easy task. The complexities of inter-industry subsector interactions and the distinction between driving and adapting subsectors make formal modelling at the local level challenging and potentially prohibitive in terms of cost. These factors corroborate to make such bottom-up modelling beyond the capacity of most local organizations. By contrast, the approach used in this article is simple but requires care and intuition to bring these various factors together into a coherent set of projections. For the case region, optimal growth is possible provided that employment policy builds job specialization. This means directing strategies away from mining into agriculture and the trade and tourism related sectors, such as wine tourism. The economic base theory and scenario testing techniques used in this article demonstrate and deliver a useful contribution to the literature by exploring which industries contribute most to more diversified and sustainable growth. Through pre-emptive strategies, perennial growth of a regional economy can be achieved.