FurmanEngaged!<\/a> and in discussions with other students, Furman faculty, government officials, and representatives of the Nature Conservancy. They also wrote letters outlining their research and conclusions to the editors of newspapers and government officials and wrote op-ed pieces for newspapers.<\/p>\nSustainability science and health sciences major Hagan Capnerhurst \u201917 wrote the mayor of Folly Beach about the erosion of marshland that is home to the endangered least terns and piping plovers.<\/p>\n
Explaining the research, biology major Trey Bergsma\u00a0\u201917\u00a0said,\u00a0\u201cWe ran a cost-benefit analysis to find out if it would be profitable to expand the shoreline by 20 feet.\u201d<\/p>\n
The students determined that coastal users would be willing to pay $6.17 million to expand nearly 348 feet of shoreline by adding 20 more feet of sand, he said. \u201cMoving sand is a difficult process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Students concluded that expanding the shoreline would make sense if done over time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is doable. It will take some time. We have to be careful when we do it, \u201csaid Jose Bailey\u00a0\u201917,\u00a0a\u00a0political science and urban studies major.<\/p>\n
And in Greenville County, students learned that there are\u00a035,000 acres of protected forest which make up 7 percent of the county\u2019s land.\u00a0\u201cWe have lost a lot of forest cover since 1993,\u201d said Bailey.<\/p>\n
To increase protected forests by 1,750 acres would take about 5.29 years and cost about $35 million.<\/p>\n
But students looked only at purchasing land for protected forests because the use of conservation easements, which also protect land, is more nebulous and difficult to put a monetary value on.<\/p>\n
Expanding either the sand on the shore or forestland has costs as well as benefits, the students discovered.<\/p>\n
Expanding the shoreline could cause shallow-water reefs to be hurt, storm damage to increase, native habitat to be degraded, and wildlife and invertebrate to be affected negatively.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u00a0are\u00a0lots of reefs out in the ocean,\u201d Bergsma said, \u201cIF you take the sand, you\u2019re losing the reef. The property values will go up, but the value of life will go down.\u00a0And expanding forestlands could cause a loss in logging profits, dampen fire mitigation, and worsen drought conditions, but\u00a0the consequences of both types of expansion would outweigh the benefits.”<\/p>\n
\u201cCoastal ecosystems are globally the most valuable,\u201d Quinn said. But \u201cwithout either one\u2014the coast or the forests, we\u2019re lost.\u201d<\/p>\n
This\u00a0May X course provided students with two sets of tools, ecological and economic. They\u00a0learned to work across disciplines, design a novel research question, and communicate their findings to a broad audience.<\/p>\n
“I\u00a0learned to translate\u00a0the value of what I wanted to do to a dollar value. I had never done anything like this before,\u201d said Bergsma.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it teaches them how to take what they\u2019re good at\u00a0and have meaningful discussions with\u00a0people outside their disciplines,\u201d Cozad said.\u00a0\u201cStudents were able to see where their disciplines fit into the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also, the students learned that interdisciplinary projects help present actions they may want to take, Quinn said. An economist and an ecologist could look at the same project and come up with different values. But if they work together, they can present it from both viewpoints and give it relevance to a great number of stakeholders.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Learn more about Furman’s May Experience<\/a> program.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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