Assessment of Artificial Reefs
Brock49 assessed a Hawaiian AR by looking at its financial gains alone, to investigate whether it was as profitable as the natural reefs. This is a useful tool as it provides an idea of the amount of people visiting an artificial reef compared to a natural reef. It also provides the value of a reef. In 1994 the profits for the AR were $20,000 dollars, compared to a profit of $278,000 from natural reefs. This profit however is from four natural reef sites compared to only one AR. Still this has shown that in this case, tourists value natural reefs much more highly than ARs. Although financial gains are a useful representative of value, they lack a large amount of information, as it does not indicate visitor satisfaction or give information about the site itself.
Questionnaires can be used to assess divers satisfaction of ARs and whether or not they think it is a suitable alternative to a natural reef. An earlier study looked at anglers and diver’s satisfaction of artificial reefs in Florida.51 This concentrated on fish abundance, accessibility and travel. They found that accessibility to the site was the most important factor to divers and that travel costs were also important. These results can be used in the placement of ARs in the future. A lot can be learnt form their method of questionnaire collection; mail surveys were sent to 3600 boaters using a general stratified sampling procedure. If boaters did not respond, a post-card and two further copies of the questionnaires were sent. This resulted in a response rate of 44.9%, which was similar to that of another mailing study conducted by Ditton et al.6, which received an overall response rate of 56%. This is a relatively low response and a waste of resources, with multiple printings of long questionnaires. Milon51 also found that those who replied were far more avid divers, giving a bias towards those with more experience and more passionate about the sport. Ditton et al.6 found that 75% of AR divers were male, however this could just have been that more males replied to the mailed survey than females. They also found that the preferred depth of a site was 21-24 metres, this indicates that the respondents had a higher dive qualification than PADI open water as they are only allowed to a depth of 18 metres. Dive sites such as this would segregate less qualified divers. The most preferred artificial dive site was large naval shipwrecks. Opinions of relevant stakeholders other than tourists would be a useful contribution to AR development research.6 Milon51 and Ditton’s6 studies did not investigate ARs as tools in conservation. Areas that are degraded due to impacts from divers are more relevant to the study of MUSA. Eilat, in the Red Sea are attempting to utilise ARs in a similar manner to MUSA.52 These surveys were conducted at dive clubs and conferences and achieved a 70% response rate, resulting in 222 usable questionnaires. Therefore for an increased response rate, handing out questionnaires in person leads to increased success. This study found that tyres, concrete blocks, pipes and cars were the least favoured artificial structures. Male divers and those that are more highly trained gave higher levels of support for the deployment of ARs. If the aforementioned research is correct, that males are more likely to damage the reef, their support of ARs could be very promising. To increase response rate of questionnaires and get a less bias sample, other studies have chosen to heavily advertise their surveys. This includes the use of promotion through print, radio and television, dive clubs, news stories and so on. The questionnaire was made available over the Internet and with hard copies for almost 10 months. Overall they received 280 questionnaires electronically and 57 as hard copies.53 …show more content…
Evidence from medical questionnaires has shown 10-20 minutes is a suitable amount of time for self-administered questionnaires to last.56 The mail surveys used by Ditton et al.6 were 11 pages long, this could also have contributed to the low response rate. Needham et al.39 had a four-paged survey that lasted approximately 15 minutes, with an 87% response rate and resulting in 2821 surveys. This would imply that this was an appropriate length for a survey, otherwise it is unlikely so many would have been
Brock49 assessed a Hawaiian AR by looking at its financial gains alone, to investigate whether it was as profitable as the natural reefs. This is a useful tool as it provides an idea of the amount of people visiting an artificial reef compared to a natural reef. It also provides the value of a reef. In 1994 the profits for the AR were $20,000 dollars, compared to a profit of $278,000 from natural reefs. This profit however is from four natural reef sites compared to only one AR. Still this has shown that in this case, tourists value natural reefs much more highly than ARs. Although financial gains are a useful representative of value, they lack a large amount of information, as it does not indicate visitor satisfaction or give information about the site itself.
Questionnaires can be used to assess divers satisfaction of ARs and whether or not they think it is a suitable alternative to a natural reef. An earlier study looked at anglers and diver’s satisfaction of artificial reefs in Florida.51 This concentrated on fish abundance, accessibility and travel. They found that accessibility to the site was the most important factor to divers and that travel costs were also important. These results can be used in the placement of ARs in the future. A lot can be learnt form their method of questionnaire collection; mail surveys were sent to 3600 boaters using a general stratified sampling procedure. If boaters did not respond, a post-card and two further copies of the questionnaires were sent. This resulted in a response rate of 44.9%, which was similar to that of another mailing study conducted by Ditton et al.6, which received an overall response rate of 56%. This is a relatively low response and a waste of resources, with multiple printings of long questionnaires. Milon51 also found that those who replied were far more avid divers, giving a bias towards those with more experience and more passionate about the sport. Ditton et al.6 found that 75% of AR divers were male, however this could just have been that more males replied to the mailed survey than females. They also found that the preferred depth of a site was 21-24 metres, this indicates that the respondents had a higher dive qualification than PADI open water as they are only allowed to a depth of 18 metres. Dive sites such as this would segregate less qualified divers. The most preferred artificial dive site was large naval shipwrecks. Opinions of relevant stakeholders other than tourists would be a useful contribution to AR development research.6 Milon51 and Ditton’s6 studies did not investigate ARs as tools in conservation. Areas that are degraded due to impacts from divers are more relevant to the study of MUSA. Eilat, in the Red Sea are attempting to utilise ARs in a similar manner to MUSA.52 These surveys were conducted at dive clubs and conferences and achieved a 70% response rate, resulting in 222 usable questionnaires. Therefore for an increased response rate, handing out questionnaires in person leads to increased success. This study found that tyres, concrete blocks, pipes and cars were the least favoured artificial structures. Male divers and those that are more highly trained gave higher levels of support for the deployment of ARs. If the aforementioned research is correct, that males are more likely to damage the reef, their support of ARs could be very promising. To increase response rate of questionnaires and get a less bias sample, other studies have chosen to heavily advertise their surveys. This includes the use of promotion through print, radio and television, dive clubs, news stories and so on. The questionnaire was made available over the Internet and with hard copies for almost 10 months. Overall they received 280 questionnaires electronically and 57 as hard copies.53 …show more content…
Evidence from medical questionnaires has shown 10-20 minutes is a suitable amount of time for self-administered questionnaires to last.56 The mail surveys used by Ditton et al.6 were 11 pages long, this could also have contributed to the low response rate. Needham et al.39 had a four-paged survey that lasted approximately 15 minutes, with an 87% response rate and resulting in 2821 surveys. This would imply that this was an appropriate length for a survey, otherwise it is unlikely so many would have been