Elsevier

Ecological Economics

Volume 68, Issues 8–9, 15 June 2009, Pages 2354-2362
Ecological Economics

Analysis
Waterfront land use change and marine resource conditions: The case of New Bedford and Fairhaven, Massachusetts

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.03.016Get rights and content

Abstract

A major challenge in gauging long-term and cumulative impacts of fisheries management on coastal fishing communities is the lack of understanding of the interactions between changes in fish stocks and waterfront land uses. This study examines these interactions in the New Bedford/Fairhaven area using parcel-level data and geographic information system (GIS) tools. Logistic regression models were used to assess the impact of changes in marine resource abundance on waterfront land uses. Although land use decisions are influenced by many complex market and regulatory factors, our study detected a significant relationship between fish stock conditions and coastal land uses.

Introduction

Many New England fish stocks have been categorized as “overfished”1 in recent decades (Hennessey and Healey, 2000, Sutinen and Upton, 2000, NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, 2008a). This situation reflects trends in fisheries worldwide (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2006). Declining stocks and subsequent management measures aimed at allowing exploited stocks to recover and rebuild bring about much political controversy, highlighting the link between communities of fish and humans.

The idea that interactions between fishery resources and people are important is not new. However it is also true that while the population dynamics of fish stocks have received considerable attention in academic literature, the dynamics of various aspects of human communities dependent on fisheries have received considerably less. Among the aspects of fishing communities neglected in relation to fish stocks are coastal land uses. How waterfronts are used tells us a lot about how commercial fisheries and communities are connected (Hershman, 1988).

While there is a body of literature on the impacts of land uses on the marine environment (e.g., how land-based pollution reaches and affects marine resources), little attention has been paid to landward effects of what goes on in the sea, especially from a spatial perspective. Studies of land side change resulting from fisheries change and from overfishing commonly address community economic and social organization or focus on lost employment or revenues. Studies analyzing quantitative spatial variations, such as shifts in land use over time, are lacking.

In this study, an approach is presented that relates spatial data—land use changes in localized waterfront properties—to marine resource conditions. The focal question is: do observed land use changes reflect changes in the fisheries industry? This study uses GIS to aid in quantifying land uses changes in the study area over the past 20 years and then relates these changes to secondary statistical data available on the fisheries for this period. The New Bedford/Fairhaven Harbor serves as a case study. The analytical framework of this study can be expanded to other commercial fishing ports for a more comprehensive state or regional picture. Such empirical analysis will aid in identifying spatial changes along waterfront communities in New England at a local level, an important step in predicting consequences of further changes in resource conditions and policy.

This paper begins with a brief summary of literature that deals with the connection between coastal land use and marine resource conditions and the importance of understanding these relationships. Section 3 describes the case study area. Section 4 presents the methods used. Data for the analyses and regression results are discussed in 5 Data, 6 Results respectively. The penultimate section of the paper points out some limitations of the method. The final section draws conclusions and makes some recommendations for future research.

Section snippets

Fisheries and communities

Studies relating fisheries management to human communities usually focus on three overlapping perspectives: a) sociological/anthropological; b) economic; and c) policy processes. Few studies have looked at spatial changes and relationships over time, yet understanding how communities change physically offers insights to understanding the well-being of surrounding human populations that are dependent on fisheries.

In some past studies, researchers conducted qualitative research from an

The study area—New Bedford/Fairhaven

The New Bedford/Fairhaven Harbor is one of the most important U.S. commercial fishing ports. The harbor straddles the Acushnet River that flows into Buzzards Bay. The majority of the harbor-related businesses are in the City of New Bedford with a smaller portion in the Town of Fairhaven (see Fig. 1). This reflects to some degree the larger, more developed and urban character of New Bedford.

The estimated population of New Bedford is 91,849 individuals, and the city has an area totaling

Methods

In this section, we describe a probability model of waterfront land use that provides a basis for evaluating the relationship between the abundance of fish stocks and marine-related land use changes. Generally, land use decisions are driven by profitability. In a standard bioeconomic analysis (Clark, 1976), profit from fishing at time t is Ph  cE; where P is the price of fish, h is harvest, c is the unit cost of fishing effort (E). Fish harvest h = qEX, where q is the catchability coefficient and X

Data

The data collection phase had two sub-phases: 1) spatial database development, and 2) collection of resource indicators and industry data. The former is primary data, collected for the purposes of this study. The latter are secondary data collected mostly from government agencies such as the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Results

We developed the described land use choice model using the parcel-level land use data, parcel characteristics, marine resource stock data, and the logistic regression procedure available within the SAS statistical software package. We ran separate models for each marine use category and combined marine uses. Generally, marine resource condition alone is not a determinant strong enough to influence land use choice for four of the five individual marine use categories, except seafood processing.

Limitations

Some limitations to the methodology relate to the vagaries of the data sources; others relate more broadly to the chosen spatial characterization (unit) and how policies and human nature encourage or inhibit waterfront land use change. The methodology may be limited in its ability to capture these factors.

Assessors' records are limited because in both New Bedford and Fairhaven records are available only back to the mid 1980s. Also, assessors' records that focus on the sale and purchase of land,

Discussions and conclusions

Since the early 1980s, there have been dramatic shifts in species abundance and harvesting capacity in many New England marine fisheries, accompanied by subsequent increases in regulation (e.g., area closures and limits on days at sea). Based on the neoclassical concept of utility, industry participants seek to adjust to new resource conditions to lessen adverse financial impacts and to maximize utility under these dynamic conditions. Logistic regression models developed to assess the impact of

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration through the WHOI/NOAA Cooperative Institute on Climate and Ocean Research (CICOR) under award number NA17RJ1223 and by the Marine Policy Center, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The authors are also grateful for the comments of Fred Serchuk of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service and two anonymous reviewers.

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