THE OPTIMAL ALLOCATION OF OCEAN SPACE: AQUACULTURE AND WILD-HARVEST FISHERIES

A significant problem hindering the emergence or the continued growth of aquaculture in many marine areas is the conflict that arises among it and other ocean uses. We develop a framework to clarify the choice of the optimal scale of aquaculture when that use impacts a commercial fishery. We identify a range of potential impacts, both positive and negative, and analyze how one or more might affect the carrying capacity of a fish stock. We conduct a numerical simulation to illustrate a case where aquaculture and fishery uses interact in the ocean and compete in the product market, and we find that an ocean area could be devoted exclusively to aquaculture. This result depends strongly upon assumptions about the nature of the interaction, the geographic distribution of fish, and the aquaculture production technology. We also investigate the behavior of the model when both uses are able to coexist.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Obituary for Prof. Paul Dubin

On May 23rd, 2018, Paul Dubin, Research Professor of Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, passed away at the age of 77. Dubin was born in 1941 in New York City to Carolyn and George Dubin. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science, City College of New York, in 1962, and received his PhD at Rutgers University in New Jersey in 1970 under the supervision of Ulrich P. Strauss. He went on to postdoctoral studies with Frank E. Karasz at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and David A. Brant at the University of California, Irvine from 1970–1972. Dubin worked as a research scientist at Dynapol, Memorex Corp., and Clairol Research Laboratories before joining the faculty in the Department of Chemistry at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, where he remained for most of his professional life. In 2005 Dubin returned to the University of Massachusetts Amherst as a part-time Research Professor

Business planning handbook for the ocean aquaculture of blue mussels

For prospective growers of blue mussels (Mytilus edulis) in New England marine waters, this handbook is designed to be useful for assessing the structure of the market (including industrial organization and regulation), for making informed choices about organizational form, and for planning aquaculture business development. Importantly, we discuss methods for evaluating environmental and market risks. Where possible, we identify web-based and other sources of information to aid in business planning and in the design and operation of an ocean aquaculture business specializing in the production of blue mussels.Sponsored by the CINEMar Program at the University of New Hampshire, Agreement No. 03- 671 to NOAA Grant Nos. NA06RP0454 and NA16RP1718

Determining the structure of the United States marine instrumentation industry and its position in the world industry

This report is a general, but comprehensive, description and analysis of industrial organization in the field of marine electronic instrumentation (MEl), a broadly defined "industry," which until now has received little systematic, scholarly attention. The report reviews the current literature on international trade and competitiveness, as well as trade and scientific journals relevant to the industry. The resul ts of a series of interviews with representatives of the industry and responsible government agencies are presented and industry and government data on R&D and output have been collected and analyzed together with other indicators of industrial performance. On the basis of these sources, the structure of the industry and its markets is characterized and the importance of marine electronic instrumenation in international high technology trade is established. Over 350 firms in the U.S. industry are identified, which annually earn total estimated gross revenues of approximately $5 billion. These firms fall into three largely distinct industry groups: (1) defense systems contractors; (2) commercial marine electronics; and (3) scientific instrumentation. The first group is by far the largest in sales volume and is oligopolistic in structure, consisting of a few large rivals for infrequent and complex defense systems contracts. The other groups are more purely competitive. Four major customer groups are distinguished: (1) military; (2) commercial and recreational shipping and boating; (3) offshore oil and gas; and (4) oceanographic/environmental. Most of the firms in the industry face international competititon. The importance of marine electronic instrumentation to technological advance and economic activity in the world's oceans is strongly apparent. Parameters affecting the international competitiveness of firms in this industry, including those relating to industry structure and behavior and governmental practices and institutions such as sponsored research, procurement, intellectual property rights, tax allowances, antitrust enforcement, small business encouragements, export controls, import restrictions, exchange rates, and technology transfer are summarized. A number of issues relating to international competititon, economic analysis, and government policy that are fruitful areas for further research also are identified.Funding was provided by the Department of Commerce, NOAA, National Ocean Service, Office of Marine Operations through a grant to the Massachusetts Centers of Excellence Corporation, grant Number NA87-AA-D-M0037

Some thermophysical property measurements of porous ceramic ''Glassrock''

Thermophysical properties of porous ceramic material - thermal conductivity, specific heat, density, and porosity measurement

Marine area governance and management in the Gulf of Maine : a case study

This case study provides a description and evaluation of marine area governance and management in the Gulf of Maine. On the advice of the Oversight Committee, we began the study at a broad level by identifying marine resources, uses of the resources, existing management regimes, and conflicts among users of the resources. The results of these initial reviews are collected in the tables in Appendix A. The Oversight Committee also suggested that we develop a chronology of important events relating to marine area governance and management in the Gulf of Maine, which is included as Appendix B. As is clear from even a quick scan of the material in Appendix A, almost every conceivable use of the marine environment occurs in the Gulf of Maine at some scale. However, some of these uses are more problematic than others in terms of the governance and management problems they engender. Rather than take a broadbrush approach that might not have done justice to any of the region's many ocean resources and uses, we decided to focus the case study on one or more of its most difficult and consequential governance and management issues. The initial survey enabled us to focus in on a subset of resources, use conflicts, and governance issues, namely those associated mainly with marine fisheries governance and management. Several considerations support the argument for a focus on fisheries governance and management. The marine fisheries are a regional-scale resource and industry, due to the mobility of the fish stocks, the geographic distribution of the users of the resource, and the fact that governance institutions have been designed to have regionwide authority. Thus fisheries mismanagement has the potential to inflict widespread social detriment and significant economic losses. Indeed, the net cost of depleted groundfish stocks under the current management structure, relative to the condition of stocks in an optimally managed fishery, has been estimated at about $139 million annually, or just under one-fifth the landed value of the entire Gulf of Maine commercial catch. Other ocean resources with potentially regional impacts, such as offshore energy, are not being pursued in the Gulf of Maine region at levels that pose significant concerns. Consequently, non-fishery resource management problems in the Gulf of Maine are, for the most part, local in scale, of comparatively minor economic significance, and not unique to the region. There is no evidence, for example, of "system-wide degradation of marine environmental quality in the Gulf of Maine. . . . The Gulf as a whole remains relatively clean, although the deep central basins appear to be accumulating several pollutants, including PAHs and PCBs" (GOMCME 1994; see also Dow and Braasch 1996 and Gould, Clark, and Thurberg 1994). Given that most pollutants of concern are concentrated in inshore waters near urban areas and in the mouths of industrialized rivers, it is not at all clear that they could be dealt with more effectively or efficiently at the regional level. In sum, our focus on fisheries reflects our judgment that the greatest net benefits might be obtained from improvements in the governance and management of these marine resources within the Gulf of Maine region.This case study was produced for the purposes of the Committee on Marine Area Governance and Management of the National Research Council (NRC), Agreement No. DOT -3830-96-002

Supply-side approaches to the economic valuation of coastal and marine habitat in the Red Sea

© The Author(s), 2013. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Journal of King Saud University - Science 25 (2013): 217–228, doi:10.1016/j.jksus.2013.02.006.The degradation of natural fish habitat in the ocean implies lost economic benefits. These value losses often are not measured or anticipated fully, and therefore they are mainly ignored in decisions to develop the coast for industrial or residential purposes. In such circumstances, the ocean habitat and its associated ecosystem are treated as if they are worthless. Measures of actual or potential economic values generated by fisheries in commercial markets can be used to assess a conservative (lower-bound) value of ocean habitat. With this information, one can begin to compare the values of coastal developments to the values of foregone ocean habitat in order to help understand whether development would be justified economically. In this paper, we focus on the economic value associated with the harvesting of commercial fish stocks as a relevant case for the Saudi Arabian portion of the Red Sea. We describe first the conceptual basis behind supply-side approaches to economic valuation. Next we review the literature on the use of these methods for valuing ocean habitat. We provide an example based on recent research assessing the bioeconomic status of the traditional fisheries of the Red Sea in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). We estimate the economic value of ecosystem services provided by the KSA Red Sea coral reefs, finding that annual per-unit values supporting the traditional fisheries only are on the order of $7000/km2. Finally, we develop some recommendations for refining future applications of these methods to the Red Sea environment and for further research.This research is based on work supported by Award Nos. USA 00002 and KSA 00011 made by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)