This project combines scientific research on Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) control technologies with economic survey and data methods to generate estimates of benefits and costs of combined control and mitigation interventions for various hypothetical HAB impact scenarios along South Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Why We Care
Florida red tide, caused by the algae Karenia brevis, has impacted the South Florida Gulf Coast almost annually since systematic record-taking started in the 1950s. Florida red tide blooms can last for months, causing widespread mortality to marine life, respiratory irritation in humans, losses in revenue to businesses and tourism, public health costs, beach cleanup expenses, and direct welfare losses to residents and visitors. Florida red tide blooms have historically occurred along the coast of the seven Florida counties (Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, and Collier) that serve as the focal region for this project.
What We Are Doing
Focusing on residential households and vulnerable businesses as the affected populations of interest, this project aims to determine the economic viability of different HAB control and mitigation interventions and their ability to generate positive net benefits to stakeholder populations.
The objectives of the project are to:
- Determine the per-household, per-year dollar-valued benefits of reducing the impact of a location-specific bloom event through control and mitigation interventions and illustrate how these benefits vary by interventions and location.
- Estimate the economic losses to vulnerable businesses that can be avoided through different control and mitigation interventions and for location-specific bloom events and determine the costs associated with these interventions.
- Conduct a benefit-cost analysis to illustrate under which conditions control and mitigation measures are most likely net beneficial.
- Develop online stated preference surveys with interactive map components and illustrate how resulting survey data can be incorporated into statistical modeling for benefit estimation.
- Examine the performance of novel hybrid statistical models blending standard stated preference components with machine learning tools.
Benefits of Our Work
Findings from this project will provide planners and administrators with more flexibility to manage blooms in a cost-effective manner, and determine the optimal investment in control and mitigation capacity for future years. Methods and findings can be readily generalized to other HAB contexts and thus have the potential to inform HAB policy well beyond the South Florida region.
This project is led by Klaus Moeltner at Virginia Tech, in collaboration with Seth Peery and Florian Zach at Virginia Tech, Vince Lovko at Mote Marine Laboratory, and Mike Parsons at Florida Gulf Coast University, and is funded by the NCCOS Social, Cultural, and Economic Assessment of Harmful Algal Blooms (SEAHAB) Program.