Shellfish Tissue Monitoring in Piscataqua Region Estuaries 2013

Originally conducted by the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment from 1993 to 2011, the Gulfwatch Program examined trends in the water quality of the Gulf of Maine by monitoring toxic contaminant concentrations in the tissues of shellfish. Starting in 2012 the Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership (PREP) continued this program in the Piscataqua Region. Each year, PREP collects blue mussels at three sites: Dover Point, NH (NHDP), Clark Cove on Seavey Island, ME (MECC), and Hampton-Seabrook Harbor (NHHS). The mussel tissue is analyzed to determine the concentrations of toxic contaminantss including heavy metals, chlorinated pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)

Panama City Fisheries Resources Office: FY 2002 Annual Report

HIGHLIGHTS FOR FY 2002 1. United States Senator Bob Graham assisted with a Gulf sturgeon survey. 2. Completed 3-year Gulf sturgeon population study in the Choctawhatchee River drainage. 3. Completed Gulf sturgeon potential spawning habitat survey for Northwest Florida and Southeast Alabama river systems. 4. Initiated Gulf sturgeon marine habitat and food resources study. 5. Completed Gulf sturgeon sentinel fish study. 6. Coordinated and conducted tagging of over 110,000 Phase II striped bass at Welaka and Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery. 7. Completed Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge fishery sampling. 8. Developed a manuscript regarding the fishery of Banks Lake NWR. 9. Initiated development of a fish Index of Biotic Integrity for Florida panhandle streams. 10. Coordinated Okaloosa darter workshop. 11. Continued examining insect communities on Eglin AFB. 12. Sponsored and coordinated stream restoration workshop. 13. Provided technical assistance via Partners for Fish and Wildlife for stream restoration within the Northeast Gulf Ecosystem. 14. Finalized regional curve development in the Northern Region of Florida and secured significant funds for FY03 to expand to other regions in Florida. 15. Initiated freshwater mussel conservation in the Northeastern Gulf Ecosystem

Britain’s decision to withdraw from the Persian Gulf: a pattern not a puzzle

The reasons for the British decision to withdraw from the Gulf are highly contentious. While some scholars have focused on short-term considerations, especially the devaluation of sterling towards the end of 1967, in the British determination to quit the Gulf, others have concentrated on longer-term trends in British policy-making for the region. This article sides with the latter. Britain's Gulf role came under increasing scrutiny following the 1956 Suez crisis as part of an ongoing debate about the costs and benefits of Britain's Gulf presence. In this sense, British withdrawal fitted into a wider pattern of British decolonisation. By the 1960s, the Treasury, in particular, strongly questioned the necessity and cost-effectiveness of the maintenance of empire in the Gulf to safeguard British economic interests there. Recent interpretations which seek to disaggregate the British decision to leave Southeast Asia from the decision to depart from the Gulf are also questionable. By mid-1967, it had already been determined that Britain would leave both regions by the mid-1970s, the only difference being that this decision was formally announced with respect to Southeast Asia, but not with regard to the Gulf. The devaluation of sterling in November 1967, therefore, merely hastened and facilitated decisions which had already been taken. Despite the end of formal empire in the Gulf, Britain did seek, not always successfully, to preserve its interests into the 1970s and beyond

Prospects for Gulf Region with closed greenhouse

In countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, water is scarce as rainfall is minimal. Growers in the Gulf Region rely on groundwater for evaporative cooling and irrigation. This source of water is running out and growers are deciding to end production. The governments of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates want to create new possibilities for horticulture in the region by developing more sustainable and water-efficient technique

Going Home: Evacuation-Migration Decisions of Hurricane Katrina Survivors

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, many evacuees from the Gulf region began the difficult process of deciding whether to rebuild or restart elsewhere. We examine pre-Katrina Gulf residents’ decision to return to the post-disaster Gulf region—which we call the “return migration” decision. We estimate two separate return migration models, first utilizing data from a mail survey of individuals in the affected region and then focusing on self-administered questionnaires of evacuees in Houston. Our results indicate that return migration can be affected by household income; age; education level; employment, marital and home ownership status; but the results depend upon the population under consideration. We find no impact of “connection to place” on the return migration decision. While the impact of income is relatively small, we find that the real wage differential between home and host region influences the likelihood of return. Larger implicit costs, in terms of foregone wages for returning, induce a lower likelihood of return. Exploiting this difference at the individual level, we are able to produce estimates of willingness to pay to return home. Average WTP to return home for a sample of relatively poor households is estimated at $1.94 per hour or$3,954 per year.

Market Integration for Shrimp and the Effect of Catastrophic Events

Seasonal unit-root testing and seasonal cointegration methods are employed to investigate the price transmission in U.S. shrimp markets. ARIMA and Vector Error Correction Models (VECM) are used to identify the effect of catastrophic events on individual price series in one region and the spillover effects in the price series for other regions. Results showed that a cointegrating relation exists between neighboring states, specifically between Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana and Texas. Cointegrating relations also exist between the Gulf States and the Pacific region, but not the Atlantic region, and the price of imported shrimp is cointegrated with each of the domestic shrimp price series. Finally, while Katrina had an effect on shrimp prices in Gulf States, the effect was not long lasting.catastrophic events, cointegration, market integration, seasonal unit-roots, spillover effects, Marketing, Risk and Uncertainty, C13, Q11, Q13,

The Houston A+ Challenge: Staying the Course

With support from the Ford Foundation, the Houston A+ Challenge participated in Public Education Network's Gulf States Initiative, designed to enlarge the role of the public in school improvement in the Gulf States region. Public Education Network (PEN) is a network of local education funds (LEFs) across the nation. In PEN's view, "public responsibility" will not emerge from conventional, smaller-scale efforts to involve parents more closely with their children's schools or to inform the community about a superintendent's program. Instead, PEN initiatives take as their premise that in a democracy, public schools can only improve in a sustainable way if a broad-based coalition of community members pushes them to improve and holds them accountable. The Gulf States Initiative charged six LEFs, including the Houston A+ Challenge, with moving their communities toward different and more substantial forms of responsibility for their schools

Seismic source in the Iberian-African plate boundary

The plate boundary between Iberia and Africa has been studied using data on seismicity and focal mechanisms. The region has been divided into three areas: A; the Gulf of Cadiz; B, the Betics, Alboran Sea and northern Morocco; and C, Algeria. Seismicity shows a complex behavior, large shallow earthquakes (h < 30 km) occur in areas A and C and moderate shocks in area B; intermediate-depth activity (30 < h < 150 km) is located in the depth earthquakes (h » 650 km) are located to the south of Granada. Moment rate, slip velocity and b values have been estimated for shallow shocks, and show similar characteristics for the Gulf of Cadiz and Algeria, and quite different ones for the central region. Focal mechanisms of 80 selected shallow earthquakes (8 ‡ mb ‡ 4) show thrust faulting in the Gulf of Cadiz and Algeria with horizontal NNW-SSE compression, and normal faulting in the Alboran Sea with E-W extension. Focal mechanisms of 26 intermediate-depth earthquakes in the Alboran Sea display vertical motions, with a predominant plane trending E-W. Solutions for very deep shocks correspond to vertical dip-slip along N-S trends. Frohlich diagrams and seismic moment tensors show different behavior in the Gulf of Cadiz, Betic-Alboran Sea and northern Morocco, and northern Algeria for shallow events. The stress pattern of intermediate-depth and very deep earthquakes has different directions: vertical extension in the NW-SE direction for intermediate depth earthquakes, and tension and pressure axes dipping about 45 ° for very deep earthquakes. Regional stress pattern may result from the collision between the African plate and Iberia, with extension and subduction of lithospheric material in the Alboran Sea at intermediate depth. The very deep seismicity may be correlated with older subduction processes

Africa and Arab Gulf states : divergent development paths and prospects for convergence

In spite of the similarities between Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab Gulf region (Gulf Cooperation Council states), development policies implemented in these two regions of the world have produced markedly different and even divergent outcomes. While Gulf Cooperation Council states have drawn on hydrocarbon revenues to dramatically transform their economic landscape, Sub-Saharan African countries have exhibited abysmal economic and social outcomes. The remarkable increase in personal income and large current account surpluses in Arab Gulf states is in sharp contrast with widespread poverty and recurrent balance of payments crises in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper reviews the possible causes of these divergent development paths and discusses the prospects for economic convergence in the new globalization landscape of growing trade ties between the two regions. In particular, it shows that development models underpinned by institutional continuity and intergenerational accountability could enhance long-run growth in Sub-Saharan Africa and income convergence between the two regions.Economic Theory&Research,Emerging Markets,Currencies and Exchange Rates,Debt Markets,

Hydrographic data from R/V endeavor cruise #90

The final cruise of the NSF sponsored Warm Core Rings Program studied a Warm Core Ring (WCR) in the Fall of 1982 as it formed from a large northward meander of the Gulf Stream. This ring, known as 82-H or the eighth ring identified in 1982, formed over the New England Seamounts near 39.5 deg N, 65 deg W. Surveys using Expendable Bathythermographs, Conductivity-Temperature-Depth-Oxygen stations and Doppler Current Profiling provide a look at the genesis of a WCR. These measurements reveal that WCR 82-H separated from the Gulf Stream sometime between October 2-5. This ring was a typical WCR with a diameter of about 200 km and speeds in the high velocity core of the 175 cm/sec. Satellite imagery of 82-H following the cruise showed that it drifted WSW in the Slope Water region at almost 9 km/day, had at least one interaction with the Gulf Stream and was last observed on February 8, 1983 at 39 deg N, 72 deg W