In the lead up to our Annual Marine Science Forum on the 2nd and 3rd of May, we will feature a post about each of the scientists presenting this year.

This week we would like to introduce you to:

Dr Mike Raybould

Associate Professor of Tourism Management and Head of the Department of Hotel and Tourism Management at Bond University on the Gold Coast

Forum presentation: Saving our beach recreation from climate change

Beaches around Australia provide a range of recreation services to local residents and tourists and support economic activities related to tourism. However, around the world, ocean beaches are threatened by rising sea levels and changing weather patterns associated with climate change. Local governments are already forced to allocate scarce resources to beach protection and this is likely to become a greater burden in many regions. Within most of our lifetimes local authorities will have to make decisions about which beaches to protect and how to protect them – decisions that will have profound implications for users.

Bio

Dr Mike Raybould is Associate Professor of Tourism Management and Head of the Department of Hotel and Tourism Management at Bond University on the Gold Coast. Mike joined Bond University in 2009 after 16 years as a teacher and researcher at Griffith University in the same fields. In previous lives he was a human resource officer for an international hotel company and a high school teacher of sciences.

Mike has degrees from the universities of Kent and Exeter (in the UK) and Queensland and Griffith (in Australia). His research and consultancy interests lie primarily in tourism and environmental economics. His current research investigates the effects of climate change on coastal recreation values in Australia and how coastal communities can adapt to minimise the negative impacts of these changes on recreation values and their local economy.