Social research specifically aimed at evaluating the efficacy of coastal zone management programs at the parish (county) level in building local capacities has been meager in academic literatures and absent from Louisiana Department of Natural Resources evaluative reports. This study addresses this deficiency by examining the effectiveness of Louisiana's Local Coastal Program (LCP) in building local coastal zone management capacity. Using levels of LCP development as a proxy for capacity-building, the study examines the influence of: 1) aggregate level social and demographic characteristics, 2) structural differences, and 3) different types of issue framing (i.e. "regulator" framing versus "regulated" framing). A multiple case design, using survey, interview, observation, and archival methods of data collection, produces two multi-layered data sets - one at the parish level (nineteen Coastal Zone parishes) and the other at the individual level (a target population of parish officials, CZM administrators and advisory panel members). Patterns in findings from quantitative and qualitative analysis are matched to rival theories, namely, resource mobilization theory and social construction theory. The analyses show that parishes with LCPs have a much stronger presence of "regulator" framing than do parishes without LCPs. The "regulator" frame is particularly strong among LCP/CZM advisory panel members, while agreement with regulator frames is lowest among parish council or police jury members. Coastal hazards vulnerability is highly salient to parishes both with and without LCPs, but the translation of hazard impacts to economic vulnerabilities, such as infrastructure damage, property loss and business interruption, is far weaker for non-LCP parishes. Themes prevalent in the data include contentions over wetland mitigation issues, disjunctions between the restorative and regulatory arm of LADNR, and disparate perceptions between non-LCP parishes and LCP parishes concerning the benefits of a parish LCP over developmental and maintenance costs. Overall findings indicate that while resource mobilization is necessary to programmatic participation and the building of capacity, social construction theory can explain the differences between respondent agreement with the regulator frame, and thus the presence of institutional capacity.

Bachelor's thesis. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

The coast of Bangladesh, comprising the complex delta of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river system has immense resources for development. In the concept of present development efforts, this zone is among the most neglected in Bangladesh. It is very often affected by natural calamities and the situation is further aggravated by some man-made hazards, which cause heavy casualties in human lives, cattle, in reducing the size of the coastal areas and in severe damage of properties worth billions of dollars. This thesis envisages looking into the particular issue of non-farm employment. This is more important in an economy in which the land-person ratio is continuously on the decrease and dissemination of intensive crop culture has limitations. This study is exploratory in nature and uses both quantitative and qualitative methods, employing survey interviews for 80 households, 20 key informant interviews and a case study on an organization in order to assess the dynamics and prospects of non-farm employment in the coastal regions of Bangladesh. Findings of the study indicate that practically all of the non-farm field of the entire coastal belt is not yet a government priority. As such, there is need for some persuasive work in formulating some policies to develop sustainable harvests from the abundant maritime resources of the area. This will create provision for non-farm employment as well as producing a vast quantity of exportable commodities for the national well-being. It is expected that it will benefit the people of the area in particular and the entire country in general.

The continuous monitoring of beaches and structures near, or in the surf-zone, has become a vital task from an environmental and economic standpoint. Specifically, the Durban beaches are continually nourished with sand that is dredged south of the Durban Harbour mouth. Constant monitoring is essential to control the erosion and accretion of these beaches. Currently, infrequent and labour-intensive manual surveys are being used to fulfil this task. This dissertation describes the techniques used to process and validate surf-zone video images to extract information, which is equivalent but more frequent and cost effective to that obtained using manual surveying methods. The emphasis is on the extraction of accurate hourly waterlines by analysing video images obtained from Coastal Imaging stations located at Addington Beach and North Beach in Durban, South Africa and the measurement of rip currents in the surf-zone from video images together with the validation of these results. The implementation of a neural network incorporating non-local image pixel data is more reliable than previously used methods, for example, grayscale thresholding or the delta-discriminator. Grayscale thresholding relies on the difference between the water and the sand pixel intensities. The delta-discriminator incorporates hue-saturation-lightness (HSL) values to improve the discrimination between water and sand. These methods could not, however, overcome the problem of varying seasonal and diurnal light intensities and require the prior choice of threshold values. The use of non-local data, such as the average RGB-values, in addition to individual pixel values as inputs to a neural network is shown to give better results in changing ambient lighting conditions. Wavelet and Fourier analysis of the temporal nature of the breaking waves in the surf-zone is also used to calculate more accurate waterlines. These extracted waterlines are validated by data collected from manual surveys. The use of Digital Correlation Image Velocimetry (DCIV) has been proven as a successful method in tracing velocity flow fields in a fluid medium. Typically, the medium is populated with distinct seeds that are tracked through successive video frames using a cross-correlation technique. It is shown that DCIV can be used in surf-zone images to measure surface rip currents by tracking the structure of the advected foam. This technique was validated by simultaneously tracking a large number of yellow corks scattered on the water surface. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2001.

Following on recent interests in social sciences for the development of aquaculture and the alternative management of fisheries, this study shows how the analysis of social and knowledge relations among State-managers, fisheries scientists and local producers helps to better understand the issues at stake in the development and management of coastal resources, and therefore to better identify if a specific cultural setting is suited or not, under its current conditions, for the implementation of a shared management of resources between the State and local organizations. An examination of the recent evolution of the Mexican fisheries sector indicates that the political economic transformations that have characterized the country over the past twenty years have not only affected rural communities in a very profound way, but have also stimulated a rapid growth of shrimp farming activities in coastal areas, and more particularly on the North coast of the state of Nayarit. However, this expansion of shrimp aquaculture has generated many conflicts over the use of and access to natural resources. A closer look at this situation reveals that it is associated with power relationships among all the social actors involved, and intimately related to political interests extending well beyond the local level. The analysis of this case study also demonstrates that conflicting dynamics are fostered by unequal knowledge relations among all the actors involved. In such a context, a complete redefinition of the relationships among State-managers, fisheries scientists and local producers is required for the implementation of any co-management initiative, and anthropologists can contribute to increased visibility of local producers within the decision-making process and fisheries science.

Rights to possess and/or use the foreshore of New Zealand are not clear, and are even cloudier in relation to Maori freehold land that is on the coast. This thesis investigates the law pertaining to rights in the foreshore, and the facts pertaining specifically to the use of the Otakou Maori Reserve foreshore. In particular, the research question is this: what does aboriginal title mean in 1996 for Otago Maori? Examining the legal issues, searching individual titles and gathering oral history are the methods used to answer this question. First, the law. In New Zealand the Crown is prima facie the absolute owner of the foreshore. This can be displaced by proof to the contrary. The doctrine of aboriginal title recognises the legal continuity of tribal property rights upon the Crown�s acquisition of sovereignty over their territory. Aboriginal title can be divided into two categories - territorial and non-territorial. Territorial title represents a tribal claim to full ownership, and non-territorial title to rights that are less than absolute ownership, such as the right to cross land, to fish and to collect flora and fauna. It is this doctrine of aboriginal title as it relates to the foreshore that can displace the Crown�s absolute ownership of the foreshore. Second, the facts. 99% of the coastal land parcels of Otakou Maori Reserve are described in written documentation as to the line of mean high water. This 99% is made up 17% Maori freehold land, 49% general land and 33% vested in the Crown or the Dunedin City Council. The remaining 1% is Maori freehold land that does not have its boundary at mean high water, but has a fixed upland boundary. Oral history facts from the takatawhenua identify that the foreshore continues to be used for access, travel, and the collection of kai moana and sea resources. The findings reveal that Kai Tahu ki Otakou have never extinguised their territorial and non-territorial aboriginal title to the foreshore of Otakou Maori Reserve. Suggested areas for future research include an investigation of other Maori reserves in Otago, and examining the doctrine of aboriginal title as it relates to the beds of watercourses.

Thesis (M. Plan.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Architecture, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-125).

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2009. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-68). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Glasgow, 2006. / Ph.D. thesis submitted to the Department of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, 2006. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.