Center for the Blue Economy

271 Items

  1. A view of San Francisco Bay taken from the north, looking south toward the SF skyline, coastal hills in foreground, sunlight gleaming off the water, leading to the SF skyline that mixes ephemerally with the clouds behind

    News Stories

    The Economic Value of America's Estuaries

    | by TBD Economics LLC, The Center for the Blue Economy, and & Rachel Christopherson

    Estuaries have always been an essential feature of the economy, and in the face of climate change, play an even more important role in buffering storms and sequestering carbon.  “The Economic Value of America’s Estuaries,” written by the Center for the Blue Economy and TBD Economics LLC for the non-profit organization Restore America’s Estuaries, details the surprisingly huge contribution of these areas to the U.S. economy, and fills in a critical gap for coastal managers and policy makers:  the economic benefit of natural infrastructure and blue carbon sequestration.

  2. North Laguna Beach, California, aerial photo showing the densely populated coast and turquoise waters lapping white sand beaches

    News Stories

    How Little We Know: Humans and Recreation on the California Coast

    | by Charles Colgan, Phil King, and Sarah Jenkins

    The California coast extends across 1,200 miles (3,000 miles depending on what is counted).  There have been extensive investments in understanding the physical and biological dimensions of the coast.  There are numerous world-class ocean science institutions in California furthering understanding of those dimensions.  However, there has been little effort to understand one of the key components of the marine ecosystem: human use.

  10. The skyline of Manhattan as seen through a cut our chain link fence--cars driving, baseball field, skyscrapers bridge and water all can be seen

    News Stories

    We can save our coasts with a $10 billion investment

    | by David Helvarg & Daniel Hayden in the Hill

    Ten billion dollars in funding to restore beach dunes and dune grass, salt marshes and estuaries, oyster and coral reefs may seem unrelated to the rebuilding of America’s crumbling roads, bridges and sewer plants. But restoring and expanding natural coastal barriers — or living infrastructure — is actually a practical cost-effective way of reducing the growing impacts of sea-level rise, intensified storms and “sunny-day flooding” associated with the rapidly worsening climate emergency. And those impacts will be devastating to the U.S. economy if we don’t act now. While vulnerable coastal counties comprise less than 10 percent of the nation’s landmass, they generate 46 percent of its GDP.