Coastal Zone Management Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Correct answer: Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both are true and the reason gives the purpose. A decision can only be judged reasonable against what else could have been done, so the assessment must set out the alternatives examined and why the chosen option was preferred. Without them the document justifies a decision already taken rather than informing one, and it is on precisely this ground that consents are most often challenged.

Answer: B

Correct answer: lack of full scientific certainty is not a reason to defer action

The principle applies where the potential harm is serious or irreversible: in that case uncertainty about the mechanism or the magnitude is not a reason to postpone protective measures. It does not dispense with evidence - it changes who bears the burden of proof - and it certainly does not require waiting for certainty, which is the position it was formulated to reject.

Answer: C

Correct answer: 1 and 2 only

Statements 1 and 2 are correct: the principle bites where harm is serious but uncertain, and it does not excuse anyone from gathering evidence. Statement 3 is the reverse of the principle - waiting for certainty before acting is exactly what it was formulated against, since by the time certainty arrives the irreversible harm has occurred.

Answer: D

Correct answer: valuation techniques that assign them a monetary equivalent

Amenity, landscape and habitat have real value but no market price, so appraisal uses techniques that infer one - travel cost, hedonic pricing from property values, contingent valuation by survey, and benefit transfer from studies elsewhere. The figures are contestable, but excluding them altogether would value them at zero, which is a stronger and less defensible assumption than any of the estimates.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both are true and the reason gives the arithmetic. At a discount rate of six per cent a benefit fifty years hence is worth about five per cent of its face value today, while the capital cost falls now and is undiscounted. Coastal schemes deliver most of their benefit far in the future, so they are acutely sensitive to the rate chosen - and the case for using a declining rate for long horizons rests on exactly this.

Answer: B

Discounting at that rate over fifty years leaves under twenty per cent. Distant benefits therefore count for far less than immediate ones in any appraisal. The rate chosen can decide the outcome. Sensitivity to the rate is routinely tested.

Answer: C

The first two are correct and reflect how schemes are actually financed. The third ignores the rationing of public funds, which is what the appraisal exists to inform. Public funds are rationed among competing schemes.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both are true and the reason describes the mechanism. Where national funding is allocated by a formula that covers only part of the cost, the remainder must come from local authorities, businesses and beneficiaries or the scheme does not proceed. Partnership funding closes that gap, and it also spreads the decision, since those contributing acquire a voice in what is built.

Answer: A

Correct answer: requiring an assessment of effects on the designated features

Designation does not prohibit works; it requires that their effect on the features for which the site was designated be assessed, and that the scheme proceed only if it will not adversely affect the integrity of the site - or, where it would, that there be no alternative, an overriding public interest, and compensatory habitat. It adds a test, not a ban, and it certainly does not remove the need for planning permission.

Answer: B

The first two are correct and describe how the regime operates. The third is too absolute, since the test concerns effect on integrity rather than the presence of works themselves. Works are not prohibited outright by designation.