Summary and Closing Remarks

by the CoastGIS'03 Scientific Committee

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The Scientific Committee would like to thank all participants who offered papers to the conference for the generally high quality of their work, the quality of their presentations and the value of the often new knowledge contained in the papers themselves.

The purpose of this closing summary is to summarize some of the key issues that came from the presentations and also from the many interesting discussions that took place in the margins of the meeting. These discussions, and the opportunity to meet like-minded professionals who often face the same or similar information challenges, are a key reason for the continuing success of the CoastGIS series of conferences.

We were pleased to see the quality of papers submitted under the themes relating to information infrastructure, a topic of great interest at both national and regional levels. These papers highlighted many of the non-science and non-technology issues that continue to adversely impact the success and long-term sustainability of many coastal zone projects and wider coastal zone monitoring initiatives at national and regional level. We can expect such issues to continue to plague coastal zone managers, researchers and government agencies as more and more policy initiatives at national and regional level draw on GIS as a mechanism for monitoring success of the initiatives, across a wide range of topics, from environmental protection to urban planning, agricultural monitoring, transport planning, etc.

Most presentations covered coastal zone research, monitoring or management work in a single nation, often in a single sub-national region. Very few therefore faced the added difficulties that arise when trying to locate, access, understand and agree usage and dissemination terms for data from owners outside not only your discipline, but outside your national legislative infrastructure for information use. We should remember that the ocean connects one piece of coastline to another, and neither the ocean nor the physical coastline show any respect for national boundaries.

Some of the key points highlighted by different members of the Scientific Committee include the following:

1. We need political champions to help guard our interests in seeing that coastal information needs are not forgotten as larger national and regional (trans-national) spatial data infrastructure (SDI) frameworks are created.
2. GIS in the coastal zone is certainly about supporting science work, but there are also non-scientific and non-technical issues to be considered.
3. Data usability is a key concern and continues to require both research and information management focus for continued development of ways to harmonise data for wider use.
4. Information infrastructure developments are needed that permit easier discovery of existing data and use of data once located, in a variety of forms, from multiple data owners or custodians.
5. We need to find ways to engage stakeholders (data creators, custodians and users) even more widely in the data management and access issues.

In Europe, launch of the European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive in 2000, to be fully implemented by December 2003 in all EU Member States, represents the first institutionalized, regional (trans-national) legal requirement that GIS be used in monitoring the implementation of a major EU policy, and one of extremely high importance on a global level - i.e. maintaining good quality water resources in river basins, groundwater, coastal zones and the off-shore transitional waters leading to the coastal zone. We predict that this is only the first such legal requirement emanating from major international institutions for use of spatial information and GIS tools for planning and monitoring purposes.

Therefore, coastal GIS practitioners should consider the need to address their next efforts towards effective usability of coastal knowledge (not just coastal data) as a major contribution to regional planning and monitoring, even at transnational level. In regard to this perceived need, various issues arise:

1. The landscape (and seascape) paradigm offers a comprehensive perspective of both the physical and human/cultural aspects of life and their interaction, defining both their current state and heritage. At European level, the European Landscape Convention (2000) offers a good example for use of Coastal GIS in planning and design phases for good governance by Administrations. Definition of similar relationships between Coastal GIS and non-European national and regional landscape and seascape policy initiatives should be investigated.
   
   
2. The operation of data, jointly with the implementation of data infrastructures, may be regarded as a chief subject for GIS optimisation. It is recommended that the coastal GIS community, comprising researchers, administrators, users, data custodians and citizens, create a formal link with existing pan-European, other transnational and global initiatives by proposing Data Infrastructure Profiles suitable for coastal GIS. We should promote these achievements towards non-GIS and non-ICAM specialists, addressing the responsible stakeholders in Public Administrations, research and industry.
   
   
3. The legal requirement to use GIS for monitoring the Water Framework Directive, and the implied need to use GIS to monitor the EU ICZM Recommendation, both focus on primarily physical data, i.e. coastal or benthic flora and fauna, geomorphology, etc. Yet for wider planning and monitoring purposes, many administrative and non-physical data sources will be needed. These must somehow be accommodated by the evolving coastal SDI.

The above points should be examined at the conceptual level, at the methodological level and at the functional level, in order to offer effective contributions to regional planning and monitoring, remembering that they apply globally, not just in Europe. The "CoastGIS Panel", through the Scientific Committee, propose to undertake initiatives to ensure that these issues continue to be addressed in further CoastGIS conferences and in the substantial work that goes on behind the scenes regarding the conference series. We hope that we have the continued support of the entire global Coastal GIS community in this effort.

At this year's conference, the combined Organising and Scientific Committee held preliminary discussions on a more formal mechanism for carrying forward the excellent work achieved both today and in the past under the CoastGIS banner. This could take one of many different forms, from creation of a legal "CoastalGIS (Conference) Association" to joining one of the existing transnational or global SDI initiatives or associations as a special interest group (SIG) or thematic Working Group. The rationale behind this proposal is to ensure greater continuity into the future for this highly successful conference series and to provide better opportunities of securing external funding for work carried out under the conference banner.

Regardless of the approach finally adopted, the goal is to raise the visibility of GIS use in the coastal zone and marine research generally and to increase the lobbying power of all stakeholders in the coastal community with regard to increasing the use of GIS in solving coastal problems.