Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
would be the immediate footprint of a building which would destroy the underly-
ing habitat completely.
The modeling process resulted in an impacts model specific to each species for
each scenario as well as in a summed species richness impact (Steinitz et al. 2005).
For one example, the highest development impact scenario, both the mainland and
Coiba Island are severely affected by the spread of development. The projected
impacts were found to mostly range from low to very high, except in several loca-
tions on the island that have resident endemic species and would consequently be
predicted to have extreme impacts (Karish and Faris 2004). Overall, there were more
severe levels of impacts predicted from tourism development on Coiba compared to
the mainland. Corals were found to be specifically sensitive to development due to
the impacts of sedimentation or recreational overuse.
Ecological impact results can be displayed in graphic format to enable compari-
sons across the alternative scenarios (see Steinitz et al. 2005). Impacts on terrestrial
species result from deforestation, and effects on the marine species are due to either
sedimentation from runoff associated with the different land use changes or direct
damage from recreational activities such as snorkeling. The impacts in these dif-
ferent categories were weighted so they could be combined into a single index to
enable predictions of ecological repercussions to be tracked to the various levels of
development (Karish and Faris 2004). One scenario examined what would happen
if the national park was determined by decree but not passed into law, in which case
unregulated development on the island would bring about very severe alterations due
to the presence of large-scale logging operations with the corresponding massive
influxes of people coming over from the mainland for work in the industry. In this
case, it's a good example of a scenario that has a minimum number of beds, in this
case only fifty, but a maximum extent of negative effects.
The economic analysis was very straightforward. Investment requirements from
private and public sources were examined for each one of these possible scenarios
(Karish and Faris 2004). Other variables included the distribution of income and the
government revenue stemming from each one of the scenarios in order to estimate
how much investment would be needed from private and from government sources
and how many jobs would be created under each scenario of tourism development.
Direct and indirect labor incomes and returns on capital were also determined, as
well as estimates of how much of the income accrues to locals within the study area
compared to Panamanians from outside of the study area.
Modeling revealed that economic subtleties existed within similar levels of tour-
ism development depending on where that development occurred (Karish and Faris
2004). For example, the economic analysis showed that when comparing develop-
ment solely on the mainland versus development solely on Coiba, it is far better off to
develop the mainland, thus preserving the island's greenspace. And interestingly, the
alternatives with the best returns for a given level of development would often entail
a little development on the island and a little bit on the mainland.
Such analyses have direct relevance to the sustainable development marshlands of
Iraq in terms of providing an easily adaptable methodology for future tourism plan-
ning. For example, what will the correct balance be in terms of developing tourism
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