ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the methods used to evaluate the social and economic performance of artificial reef development with a primary emphasis on data collection and measurement techniques. The second section presents the chapter objective, discusses the background and purposes of socioeconomic assessment, and introduces the possible social objectives and relevant types of information for artificial reef assessment of these objectives. In the third section, the social and economic dimensions of artificial reefs are defined, including the potential scope of reef-user interests and the importance of legal and institutional considerations. The fourth section discusses in greater detail the types of social and economic assessments and highlights the studies that have employed these concepts. The fifth section reviews the techniques available to collect and measure social and economic data for analysis. The chapter concludes with a case study.
