Principal Investigators:

Dr. Douglas Lipton, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
Dr. Rodney Weiher, Office of Policy and Strategic Planning, NOAA

Funders:

NOAA, National Sea Grant College Program
NOAA, National Marine Fisheries Service
NOAA, Ocean & Coastal Resource Management, Marine Sanctuaries Division
NOAA, Coastal Ocean Program

Goals and Objectives

Goal: Enhance the use of environmental valuation information in coastal management issues to increase the net benefit to the nation that results from decisions based on NOAA science.

Objectives:

• Education of coastal decision makers about environmental valuation and its use in coastal management;
• Regional applied environmental valuation projects that address key management concerns in coastal issues;
• Extension of this information so that it is correctly interpreted and applied in the decision process

• Regionally directed environmental valuation handbooks fact sheets and related materials that are necessary to support the education of coastal decision makers.
• Applied environmental valuation research projects to generate key information not being developed in other projects.
• Extension educators will be trained in the techniques and concepts of environmental valuation so that they can help local decision makers interpret results and incorporate them into their decision process.
• World wide web page development and maintenance to share research findings, data and on-line publications will be developed and maintained as part of this network activity. Links to other sources of coastal and marine resource economics information will make this website the starting point for coastal managers to obtain information.

Timeframe and Budget

1998 - $165,000
1999 - $144,000