Nearly all the marine-related social science research supported by 

 ACE is sponsored by the Institute for Water Resources. ACE projects 

 over the past 5 years have focused particularly on aspects of coastal zone 

 management and deep-water port developments. One coastal zone study 

 seeks to assess the significance of legislation, policies, and actions at all 

 levels of government affecting the coastal zone. Other, more specific, 

 studies are concerned with different ways of estimating the value and 

 incidence of beach recreation benefits and the evaluation of alternative 

 cost-sharing roles for shoreline protection with respect to efficiency, 

 equity, and administrative feasibility. 



A major ACE project examined the need for deep-water ports off the 

 U.S. coast. It included commodity studies and projections, as well as 

 studies relating to the physical characteristics of coastal areas and port 

 requirements, the selection of deep-water port alternatives, the environ- 

 mental and ecological aspects of deep-water ports, and the transport of 

 bulk commodities and benefit-cost relationships. 



Several ACE studies have dealt with the comparative aspects of deep- 

 water port development. For example, one report has provided a selec- 

 tive overview of the economic, engineering, and environmental factors 

 in the decisions of foreign governments about deep-water port develop- 

 ment, primarily for oil tankers but also for general cargo carriers. In- 

 vestigators working in this project have visited and described ports in 

 the Persian Gulf as examples of oil loading and Europe as examples of 

 unloading. Other comparative work examined port developments in 

 Japan. A more recent study has used a systems approach to analyze the 

 total cost of alternative deep-water port, refinery, and transport com- 

 binations for crude oil and refined products. 



Since 1970. DOI's OWRT has funded increasing numbers of studies 

 devoted to the socio-economic aspects of water quality and its 

 availability and use in estuaries and coastal areas. Most current projects 

 are supported through annual allotments to institutes in each of the 

 coastal States involved in water resources research. Representative proj- 

 ects in this program include: A case study of "Estuarine Pollution and 

 Local Agency Interaction" in Mississippi; "A Management Model for 

 the Chowan River Estuary" in North Carolina; "Transfer of Public Par- 

 ticipation, Education, and Communication to Coastal Zone Programs" in 

 Ohio; "An Economic Investigation of the Allocation of State-Owned 

 Wetlands with Regard to Oyster Production" in South Carolina; and 

 "Economic Effects of Land Subsidence Due to Excessive Ground Water 

 Withdrawal in the Texas Gulf Coast Area." 



Several projects deal specifically with coastal zone management 

 issues. One is a two-part study of the problems of urban development at 

 Rookery Bay, Florida. The first part involves a study of the hydrology, 

 oceanography, water quality and ecology of the Rookery Bay system as 



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