Articles

• Working Waterfronts
• 10 Questions on the Gulf of Mexico Research Plan
• Mississippi Team Wins Hurricane Bowl
• Lewis and Plutchak Selected as Knauss Fellows
• Josh Clemons Leaves Sea Grant Law Center
• Crozier Retires from DISL, Joins Bellwether Group
• Featured Publication
• Guest Editorial

Sea Briefs is a report on the results of the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium.

Editor: Valerie Winn

This newsletter is available in PDF format from:
masgc.org/seabriefs

MASGC supports applied, interdisciplinary marine science research, education and outreach efforts to foster the sustainable development and management of the Mississippi and Alabama coasts and nearshore ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico

Mississippi-Alabama
Sea Grant Consortium
703 East Beach Drive
Ocean Springs, MS 39564
Phone: 228-818-8840
E-mail: seabriefs@masgc.org
MASGP 08-011-01

Working Waterfronts

Database Tool for Planning

Understanding the dynamics of Alabama’s working waterfronts in addition to building a database of businesses in the southwestern part of state form the foundation of a Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium-funded project led by Dr. Diane Hite, associate professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology of Auburn University. Hite, her co-investigators Luke Marzen (AU Geography) and Conner Bailey (AU Rural Sciology), and their team of graduate students, Mac Martin, Jennings Byrd, Nhuong Van Tran and Daniel Correa, have addressed the issue of land use competition and how it affects those who earn their livelihoods from working in and around Alabama’s coastline and its waterways.

After meeting with the Alabama Working Waterfront Coalition, the team mailed out surveys in the spring of 2007 and followed up on them with two months of field work. With the aid of aerial photography, they assembled a geographical information system (GIS) database that includes census block demographics, business footprints and associated information. They have also given a series of presentations throughout the surveyed areas that reveal their findings.

Of the 350 original surveys sent out and delivered in person, 285 were used. From that 285, 87 were returned for a response rate of 30.5 percent. Of the businesses surveyed, 83.91 percent were related to waterfront activities such as restaurants, bait shops and marinas, 50 percent of which are involved in the commercial and recreational fisheries industries. More than 80 percent of the responders were business owners. Nearly 63 percent indicated that new roads and new dock facilities would be the most important in enhancing profitability. Nearly 60 percent saw local housing developments as opportunities while about 26 percent saw local condominiums development as a threat. While federal and state fisheries regulations presented a threat to nearly 57 percent of the business owners, 47 percent saw recreational fisheries expansion as an opportunity.

With findings such as these and others, the database could be used to quantify current economic conditions and predict land use change in the Gulf of Mexico, particularly in southwest Alabama and specifically in the towns of Bayou La Batre and Dauphin Island, the Dog River and Mobile-Tensaw Causeway areas and the unincorporated areas of Coden and East and West Fowl River.

“Competition for land use is of special concern in the coastal zone where growing populations and tourism development have increased the economic value of land,” said Hite. “Consequently, there has been loss of working waterfronts as locally-owned water dependent businesses are displaced by investors who build condominiums, casinos and beach resorts.”

The database can serve as a baseline for monitoring ongoing changes through time which will aid in planning and decision making processes. The information will also be made available to a host of agencies.

“ For example, we will share the digital imagery with Alabama Geological Survey and the Economic Development Institute at Auburn University,” said Hite. “We will also disseminate the results to the Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES) employees involved in economic development along Alabama’s coastline.”

“We believe our work will constitute a seminal contribution to understand the working waterfront in Mobile County,” she said. “The inventory will serve as an educational tool and a baseline of what currently exists. This information may help direct Alabama Working Waterfront Coalition efforts. The database also can be used to plan for change that is consistent with the needs of an evolving working waterfront that takes into consideration needs of local stakeholders.”

Having access to readily accessible information developed through a research process which coastal populations help to guide will provide the AWWC and other stakeholder groups a basis for planning the future of Alabama’s working waterfront.