Prioritizing county-level well-being: Moving toward assessment of Gulf Coast counties impacted by the Deepwater Horizon Industrial Disaster

To develop a portfolio of indicators and measures that could best measure changes in the social, economic, environmental and health dimensions of well-being in coastal counties we convened a group of experts March 8-9, 2011 in Charleston, SC, U.S.A. The region of interest was of the northern Gulf of Mexico, specifically, those coastal counties most impacted during the explosion and subsequent oil spill from the Macondo Prospect wellhead during the summer of 2010. Over the course of the two-day workshop participants moved through presentations and facilitated sessions to identify and prioritize potential indicators and measures deemed most valuable for capturing changes in well-being related to changes in or disruption of ecosystem services. The experts reached consensus on a list of indicators that are now being operationalized by NOAA researchers. The ultimate goal of this research project is to determine whether a meaningful set of social and economic indicators can be developed to document changes in well-being that occur as a result of changes in ecosystem services. The outcomes and outputs from the workshop that is the subject of this report helped us to identify high-quality indicators useful for measuring well-being.

Yemaya, No. 25, July 2007

Battling against Wind and Tide - Latin America/ Uruguay. Women’s Changing Participation - Oceania/ Pacific Islands. From Challenge to Opportunity - Latin America/ Chile. AKTEA Meets Again - European Union. Why Are We in CONAPE? - Latin America/ Brazil. Women in Fisheries, Policy - Asia/ Philippines. A Disaster in the Making - Asia/ India. Texas Gold - Film.

Investment in the training of technologists for commercial aquaculture

The protein shortage in Nigeria is noted and the role of aquaculture (=fish farming) as a complement in increasing the dwindling food supply is registered. In addition, the manpower shortage especially in the technology cadre is noted and attributed to the lack of co-ordination and standard curricula especially in aquaculture. An inventory of tasks performed in the aquaculture industry was taken and these were classified and validated, then their final priority level was used to assess which ones were critical, important or desirable and which ones would result in disaster or not with inadequate mastery. Based on the above, recommendations are made that all critical and important tasks be included in the teaching curriculum for aquaculture in both theory and practicals: while it is advocated that all tasks listed be undertaken in fish farm operations. This will raise the competence of technologists to run the commercial aquaculture projects

Coastal community hazard mitigation and community rating system of NFIP

Storm force flooding continues to be a major concern in the hurricane season and causes considerable loss to the coastal communities. National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) provides recovery resources for the flood disaster and dissuades uneconomic uses from locating in flood hazard area. In order to motivate flood insurance purchase and promote increased flood hazard mitigation, the Community Rating System (CRS) that is a part of NFIP, credits 18 community floodplain management activities. However, CRS has been marked by a lack of active participation since its inception limiting its potential effectiveness. As of January 2008, 1080 communities, representing only 5% of all the NFIP communities have enrolled in CRS. Little empirical evidence exists to shed light on what factors influence the establishment of local hazard mitigation projects. To fill this gap, we propose to analyze flood hazard mitigation projects in 37 North Carolina coastal counties between 2002 and 2008. Specifically, we will examine the influence of physical, risk, and socioeconomic factors on coastal community hazard mitigation decisions as reflected in the CRS score. Ultimately, our project will forge a better understanding of community decision making, as related to natural hazards. (PDF contains 4 pages)

Climate change and its risk reduction by mangrove ecosystem of Bangladesh

Climate change is amongst the most dreaded problems of the new millennium. Bangladesh is a coastal country bounded by Bay of Bengal on its southern part and here natural disasters are an ongoing part of human life. This paper discusses about the possible impact of climate change through tropical cyclones, storm surges, coastal erosion and sea level rise in the coastal community of Bangladesh and how they cope with these extreme events by the help of mangrove ecosystem. Both qualitative and quantitative discussions are made by collected data from different research work those are conducted in Bangladesh. Mangrove ecosystem provides both goods and services for coastal community, helps to improve livelihood options and protect them from natural disaster by providing variety of environmental support

PICES Press, Vol. 20, No. 1, Winter 2012

•2011 PICES Science: A Note from the Science Board Chairman (pp. 1-6) •2011 PICES Awards (pp. 7-9) •Beyond the Terrible Disaster of the Great East Japan Earthquake (pp. 10-12) •A New Era of PICES-ICES Scientific Cooperation (p. 13) •New PICES Jellyfish Working Group Formed (pp. 14-15) •PICES Working Group on North Pacific Climate Variability (pp. 16-18) •Final U.S. GLOBEC Symposium and Celebration (pp. 19-25) •2011 PICES Rapid Assessment Survey (pp. 26-29) •Introduction to Rapid Assessment Survey Methodologies for Detecting Non-indigenous Marine Species (pp. 30-31) •The 7th International Conference on Marine Bioinvasions (pp. 32-33) •NOWPAP/PICES/WESTPAC Training Course on Remote Sensing Data Analysis (pp. 34-36) •PICES-2011 Workshop on “Trends in Marine Contaminants and their Effects in a Changing Ocean” (pp. 37-39) •The State of the Western North Pacific in the First Half of 2011 (pp. 40-42) •Yeosu Symposium theme sessions (p. 42) •The Bering Sea: Current Status and Recent Events (pp. 43-44) •News of the Northeast Pacific Ocean (pp. 45-47) •Recent and Upcoming PICES Publications (p. 47) •New leadership for the PICES Fishery Science Committee (p. 48)