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Coastal Ecosystem Response Paper

Decent Essays

Coastal marine ecosystems are a very important part of the coastal economy as well as the natural ecology. Not only do coastal systems provide socioeconomic benefits such as tourism and aesthetics, but also several ecosystem services. The ecosystem services provided by coast environments include coastal erosion, storm protection, recreational or commercial fishing, carbon sequestration and filtration (Wingard and Lorenz, 2014). Unfortunately, these services have been impacted by pressures such as altered flow of freshwater runoff, sea level rise (which in turn also increases the frequency and intensity of storms) and man-made channels (Wingard and Lorenz, 2014). Another major factor that has impacted and deteriorated many coastal areas is urbanization …show more content…

He develops this by using a five step rule that includes finding, limiting, assessing, common scaling and weighing. During the “finding” step, one must identify all possible elements of a coastal area that would affect it. Then narrow those results down to the most relevant elements in the “limiting” stage. It is then essential to determine how to measure each of those elements and how to conglomerate into a wholesome number in order to compare the outcomes in the “assessing” and “common scaling” steps. The last step involves adding “weight” to different indexes in order to give some elements more significance over the other (Cendrero and Fischer, 1997). Cendrero and Fischer (1997) also call for conducting interviews and questionaries’ to determine both the needs of the coastal scientists and coastal planner; the needs of both are then …show more content…

According to Cendrero and Fischer (1997), each indicator receives a value between 0 and 1 as well as a weighing factor. The weight for each indicator is multiplied to the value of each indicator and then these numbers are combine to get a total score. Cendrero and Fischer (1997) then developed a “conservation-development diagram” that would map the values from the total combination and could determine areas in need of conservation as well as areas that could potentially developed. On the other hand, Barbosa de Araujo and da Costa (2008) developed a system where sixty parameters are taken into consideration where natural parameters where given a values of 1, 2 or 3 and socioeconomic parameters were given qualitative values of either “+” or “-.” These were then added and assed on a A-D grading scale. Alternatively, Marshall et al. (2014) developed a system where each indicators was given a score of 1 (for poor), 2 (for fair) or 3 (for good). These were then added together and compared. A score between 9 and 14 designated poor condition of the beach. Between 15 and 20 designated fair condition and between 21 and 26 designated good condition (Marshall et al.,

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