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Documentation about bay and estuary cases in the USA that would be useful to Yellow Sea region decision making.

This is only a very preliminary sketch. Feedback is welcome.

The premise of the work proposed here is that the "common sense" notions regarding how restrictions on filling coastal wetlands (mainly intertidal mudflats) in the Yellow Sea region may affect economic growth may not be consistent with how events have actually unfolded in the USA since the federal Clean Water Act Amendments of 1970 and 1972. Assembly and presentation of economic statistics from the USA may therefore help guide decisions in the Yellow Sea region.

Examples of the types of information that may be useful are listed below. First, pick an area from which economic statistics are available that roughly corresponds to the watershed of an estuary in the USA, such as Baltimore Harbor, Boston Harbor, Galveston Bay, Mobile Bay, or Green Bay. Then, from this area, assemble the following information (present value):

1. macroeconomic statistics by economic sector, perhaps by major SIC or NAICS codes, perhaps grouped into agriculture, tourism, some of the major local industry sectors, residential and commercial real estate development, etc.,
2. investment in:
   1. industrial wastewater treatment,
   2. municipal wastewater treatment,
   3. river and estuary sediment cleanup (remediation),
   4. other cleanups in the watershed (soil and groundwater),
   5. agricultural and urban storm-water management, and
   6. any efforts to restore wetlands filled or drained prior to 1970,
3. a review of published estimates of lost ecosystem services value due to wetland filling, either prior to or after 1970.

The goal of the above would be to provide, within the context of a US watershed relevant to the Yellow Sea region, quantitative information about:

• the economic growth of various sectors since about 1970, when strict wetland filling restrictions were put in place,
• investments in cleaning up public waters over the same time period, and
• estimates of ongoing external costs from past wetland conversion.