The new Sea Grant Impact Calculator helps Long Islanders to assess the value of investments. Photo: Richard Vogel, Farmingdale State College School of Business;  Inset: Town Planners and other decision makers can use the simple Sea Grant Impact Calculator to obtain a snapshot of economic impacts on Long Island. Graphic: NYSG.

NYSG’s Impact Calculator enhances capability to assess coastal economic impacts

Contact:

Antoinette Clemetson, NYSG Marine Fisheries Specialist, P: 631-632-8730, E: aoc5@cornell.edu

Stony Brook, NY, March 4, 2019 - Tools to help Long Island community leaders to answer basic questions about economic impacts from various sectors are lacking. Town planners and other decision makers must consider several factors in order to assess the full extent of proposed actions before making investments. In fact, fishing communities are often concerned about the cost to their livelihood if they are to be displaced by other sectors.

New York Sea Grant (NYSG) funded researchers at the School of Business at Farmingdale State College of the State University of New York (SUNY) to develop a tool to allow users to gauge economic impacts in Long Island’s coastal communities.

The Sea Grant Impact Calculator is an online tool that may be used to generate a snapshot of the impacts from monetary investments or losses associated with a conglomeration of industries that are prevalent on Long Island. This calculator uses static IMPLAN economic databases and includes fishing and agriculture statistics. This capability did not exist in Long Island communities prior to this time.

NYSG and the SUNY Farmingdale School of Business facilitated a round table panel to present this tool to 35 members of the Melville Chamber of Commerce. Chamber members also learned about the basic framework being used to manage wild harvest fisheries and the Choose Long Island campaign.

“In terms of strictly numbers, it seems like the recreational fisheries and the commercial fisheries are very small in comparison to the region’s economy, but they are a strong attractor of tourists and improve the quality of life for residents.” — Dr. Richard Vogel, Dean, SUNY Farmingdale School of Business, Newsday 10/11/18

Partners:

• Farmingdale State College School of Business
• Melville Chamber of Commerce
• Suffolk County Government

More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York (SUNY), is one of 33 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.

Since 1971, NYSG has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Oswego and the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University in Long Island, Brooklyn College and Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC and Kingston in the Hudson Valley.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has RSS, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube links. NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which is published quarterly. Our program also produces an occasional e-newsletter,"NOAA Sea Grant's Social Media Review," via its blog, www.nyseagrant.org/blog.