Ecotourism presents an opportunity to provide equitable benefits to local communities; serve as a platform for environmental education; and can be leveraged to support conservation initiatives, shifting away from traditional mass tourism and other forms of unsustainable marine use. Marine ecotourism sectors, such as scuba diving, whale and shark watching are increasingly important for local economies but their aggregate benefits are often overlooked in global ocean economy discussions. Here, we present a first estimation of the global economic value of scuba diving, including 11,500 identified scuba dive operators across the world. Based on an online operator survey, we estimate global annual revenue (direct diving expenditure in 2019) at between 0.9–3.2 billion USD per year, and the broader economic impact (direct and indirect expenditure) at between 8.5 and 20.4 billion USD per year. Marine tourism is one of the largest sectors in the ocean economy, and with 8.9–13.6 million marine diving tourists worldwide supporting up to 124,000 jobs, the scuba diving sector could be at the forefront of transformative change for local and global ocean equity and sustainability.

Social impact assessment (SIA) is a process that provides a framework for gathering and analyzing information to determine intended and unintended social consequences of changes and developmental interventions on human environment. This assessment that emphasize on social and cultural issues, is more important in historic site that have more tangible social role than the new parts of the city and these areas should preserved by planning and subsequent evaluations due to their cultural heritage value. The aim of this paper that evaluated social impacts of reconstruction project of Jameh Mosque Street of Yazd city in Iran when it came into operation, is identify specific indicators for SIA in historic site through the use of general indicators and matching SIA process to the historical and cultural context of the heritage site. In order to achieve this goal, the research is based on SIA approach also descriptive and inferential statistics and focus group methodology were used to analyze the environment data. Hypotheses and measuring variables tested by analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and qualitative analysis with domain matrix. Accordingly, the estimation and selection of the effects of the project and its prioritization are based on some factors such as the importance and degree of feasibility that have different result in heritage site than the new urban areas. Finally, an operational framework and some strategic suggestions were made to improving the general process of SIA to use in heritage site and maximizing the efficiency of similar projects in every historic areas which leads to the consent of stakeholders.

The Global Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) was developed in 2010 and used health, education and standard of living indicators to determine the incidence and intensity of poverty experienced by a population. While the MPI is a global index, the method is flexible and can be modified to best suit the environment or target groups. Coastal regions are one of the most critical areas that require modified MPI, since their complex structures are constantly subjected to natural and human changes that affect the living conditions of residents. What is lost in using the global MPI for poverty assessment in coastal communities is the lack of attention to contextual characteristics and, subsequently, missing various multi-aspect indicators in different natures and scales. This paper reviews the MPI and tries to expand the model based on the indicators of marine development approaches for the Makran coastal region as the case study. Overall, this review draws attention to social, natural, and financial capitals that have not conventionally been incorporated into the MPI model. According to the proposed model, although the Makran region has made slight progress in poverty reduction based on the general MPI index under the influence of development plans and various drivers during a ten-year period, it is severely impoverished in social, financial, and natural indicators presented by the expanded model. This difference shows the importance of using the developed model to enhance assessment accuracy and recommends a combination of five main poverty-related dimensions for poverty alleviation policies and evaluation processes in coastal regions.