Abstract
For the past five years, Gulf of Mexico states have dealt with nearly annual appearances of massive Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) that have impacted coastal ecosystems and dependent tourism, fishing and the larger economies of communities. The research objectives of this project focused on quantifying the linkages between economic outcomes and Gulf of Mexico coastal health, specifically HABs. Results from the project were intended to enable coastal natural resource managers and their state and federal partners to quantify the economic implications for HABs (and their avoidance), and thereby assess options for restoration investment or management action. The tools developed in this project estimated economic impacts as measured by revenues, employment, wages and property values – all values that the public and official can understand. An important discovery was the critical linkage between social media metrics and economic impacts – as opposed to an assumed relationship between scientific data (in this case, HAB cell counts) and economic effects, which for the Florida Gulf Coast was weak or non-existent. To our knowledge, this was the first work to link economic impacts relating to Harmful Algal Blooms to social media activity. An online dashboard was developed and published which allows users to assess the economic impacts across time (monthly during the 2017-2019 event), geography (county, market region and state levels) and type (tourism, fishing, property values, etc.). The dashboard was designed to use publicly available data and thereby able to be replicated and transferrable to other Gulf States.
