Measuring Project Impact
Nourishment projects usually involve physical, environmental and economic objectives. Typical physical measures include dry beach width, remaining post-storm sand volume, post-storm damage avoidance assessments and aqueous sand volume. Environmental measures include marine life distribution, habitat and population counts. Economic impacts include recreation, tourism, flood and "disaster" prevention. Techniques for incorporating nourishment projects into flood insurance costs and disaster assistance remain controversial.
The ability to predict the performance of a beach nourishment project is best for a project constructed on a long, straight shoreline without the complications of inlets or engineered structures. In addition, predictability is better for overall performance, e.g., average shoreline change, rather than shoreline change at a specific location.
Nourishment can affect eligibility in the National Flood Insurance Program and federal disaster assistance.
Read more about this topic: Beach Nourishment
Famous quotes containing the words measuring, project and/or impact:
“By measuring individual human worth, the novelist reveals the full enormity of the State’s crime when it sets out to crush that individuality.”
—Ian McEwan (b. 1938)
“The candidate tells us we are the “backbone of the State,” and we know that it is true, not because we are possessed of certain endowed virtues, but because we are a majority and have the vote.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)