 | | |  | | |  | | |  | |  | | To opt out of future mailings, please e-mail the list manager. | | |
| NCED presents delta plan at AAAS | | Last month NCED PIs Gary Parker, Robert Twilley, and David Mohrig presented talks in a 90-minute symposium organized by NCED Director Chris Paola at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Boston. Following the meeting, Parker, Twilley, Mohrig, and Paola participated in a press conference, which resulted in two published articles about their symposium: "New Mississippi delta would limit hurricane damage" (New Scientist Environment) and "A Grand Diversion in Louisiana" (Findings: The Science Magazine News Blog). The symposium, entitled “Designing self-maintaining deltas: a multidisciplinary approach to restoration,” allowed NCED researchers to present to the broader research community their data and strategy for delta restoration in Louisiana. So what are the next steps? Where do we go from here? NCED researchers will continue to fine tune their delta restoration plan by working on more precise predictions concerning how the whole process would unfold. There’s also a need to convince the community (research, citizens, congress, etc.) that this plan will work and should be funded. Paola attended the recently held 2008 Ocean Sciences Meeting, providing publicity and additional momentum for NCED’s delta restoration plan. And, there are plans in progress to bring Minnesota, Louisiana, and congressional leaders together to discuss delta restoration, which would provide even more attention to the ambitious restoration plans being developed by NCED and its partners. |  | | Left: New land at Wax Lake Delta. Right: Sinking land in the main Mississippi Delta. | | | | Role of social benefits in river restoration | | Fifty years ago, economic analysis played an important role in 1) helping the public decide whether the benefits of large, public water projects justified their costs and in 2) determining which projects delivered the highest benefits. Now the emphasis is on river and stream restoration projects, which are often intended to mitigate damage from earlier construction projects. Despite the increasing amounts of money spent on restoration, few restoration projects are scrutinized from a social benefits perspective. NCED PI Nicholas Flores (CU-Boulder, economics) is working to include explicit consideration of social benefits in river restoration decisions. Assisted by NCED graduate students Aric Shafran (now an assistant professor of economics at California Polytechnic State University) and Andrew Meyer, Flores recently conducted a study in Minnesota—part of the Minnesota Le Sueur River Project—to estimate how much the public values restoring water quality in the Minnesota River Basin and to determine the loss in benefits (monetary vs. social) for delaying restoration. In addition, Flores is working to estimate how large an economic incentive farmers in the Minnesota River Basin will need in order to voluntarily adopt best management practices—these practices will help restore water quality. Finally, outside of Minnesota, Flores is developing economic models of coastal Louisiana that can be used to estimate the monetary benefits of Mississippi River delta restoration; explicit social benefits estimates, and balancing those estimates against restoration costs, will be conducted at a future time. | |
