COASTAL SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURE AS PART OF NATIONAL/REGIONAL SDI

Roger Longhorn

IDG Ltd, GI Projects Office, Wootton, (UK)

Abstract
Many nations and a few trans-national regions are attempting to implement spatial data infrastructures (SDI) and have been engaged in various SDI-related initiatives for more than a decade, with limited results to date. A survey in 2001 (Crompvoets and Bregt 2001) found that 120 of the 192 nations in the world were working on their NSDI and about half had established catalogues of key data resources searchable on the Web. Several nations are also engaged in developing specific coastal zone SDI (CSDI) components in their national SDI plans. Some nations use the term marine geospatial data infrastructure (MGDI) versus CSDI. This paper examines three issues. Why should CSDI be considered of such importance that its explicit specification within national and regional SDI warrants extra effort? What are the main requirements for CSDI components? How have various nations approached CSDI implementation?

Introduction to SDI
Specification of national, regional and global spatial data infrastructures (SDI) has been underway for a decade, with varying degrees of success. Often missing from these initiatives are stated, formal success criteria, which complicates the task of determining how successful they are or will be in the future. At trans-national level, investigations into regional SDI (RSDI) requirements began in 1995 in Europe (ESDI) and Asia-Pacific (PCGIAP) and in 2000 in the Americas (PC-IDEA), mainly in response to NSDI developments occurring in a few nations within these regions. Global SDI discussions started in 1996 with the first GSDI conference in Bonn, Germany and the Global Mapping Project, which began in 1997. Most attempts to create SDI at national level (NSDI) have yet to be fully implemented. As we near the end of 2003, many SDIs are still "visions" or "strategies" as opposed to legally mandated, physical components of an information infrastructure, such as enforceable (and enforced) standards, mandatory spatial data metadata creation and dissemination, and widely accepted information access policies. At regional level, even less has been achieved in creating true information infrastructure. Globally, the main focus has been on community building, consensus building, creating vision, and defining overall strategy and goals.

One complication in specifying SDI is the nature of spatial information, i.e. information with an important location attribute, which is often said to represent 80% of all information held, especially at government level . The visionaries and designers of SDI must accommodate the widely varying information needs of highly diverse disciplines and sectors of society, business and government. Health epidemiologists are seldom interested in the same spatial data as geological surveyors, agriculture agencies, air traffic controllers or coastal zone managers. Yet an important overlap in jurisdiction and information needs may arise, e.g. when a potential health epidemic is generated by toxic chemical concentration in marine fauna or flora that is later consumed by area residents. Then knowledge of distribution of the coastal zone flora and fauna, hydrography, nearby land use practices by industry and agriculture, near-shore transport routes, fishing practices and zones all become intertwined.

How do we develop a comprehensive SDI specification without taking into consideration all such needs? The complexity of the interrelationships that exist between different types of spatial information is one of the reasons that countries have taken different routes to specify their SDI, ranging from strategies to visions to goals to detailed content (data and standards) and implementation plans (rules and regulations). Is it practical to develop SDI at national or regional (trans-national) levels in the same way that telecommunications or transport infrastructure is implemented? Is it possible or even desirable to attempt to specify SDI on a sector-by-sector basis, including for the coastal zone?

Coastal SDI
We all recognize that the coastal zone is a difficult physical area to manage, due to the inherent overlapping not only of physical geography and hydrography (offshore, near shore, shoreline, inshore) but also of institutions. Typically, many different local, national and regional government agencies are responsible for the different physical areas and uses of the coastal zone, e.g. fisheries, environment, agriculture, transport (inland and marine), urban planning, national mapping agency and the hydrographic service. Due to the high economic value of coastal activities, ranging from fisheries to tourism and mineral exploitation, and to the social value of coastal zones for quality of life, managing the coastal zone is a key component of the socio-economic framework in most nations with extensive coastlines.

Because of the complex physical and institutional relationships, it is not possible to develop a coastal zone SDI (CSDI) in isolation from the broader NSDI for a nation or RSDI for a region. CSDI will necessarily be a subset of a more comprehensive NSDI because the coastal zone covers multiple physical and institutional spaces covered by the NSDI overall. It is important that those people and agencies with specific knowledge and experience of the coastal zone be an integral part of the NSDI or RSDI planning process.

Few nations have specified SDI for individual sectors such as the coastal zone. The following sections provide an overview of CSDI initiatives in the USA, the United Kingdom, Canada and the European Union, as examples of different approaches to CSDI creation being taken at national and trans-national level.

CSDI in the USA
In the USA, a Coastal NSDI vision exists, based on four goals that relate to the USA NSDI (NOAA 2001). The CSDI initiative in the USA is led by the Coastal Services Centre of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), supported at implementation level by the Federal Geographic Data Committee's (FGDC) Marine and Coastal Spatial Data Subcommittee.

The main goals of the US CSDI are (NOAA 2001):

Development of technical standards to support the CSDI is carried out by the FGDC's Marine and Coastal Spatial Data Subcommittee, under chairmanship of NOAA/CSC (FGDC 2002). The committee's primary mission is to develop and promote the Marine and Coastal NSDI so that "current and accurate geospatial coastal and ocean data will be readily available to contribute locally, nationally, and globally to economic growth, environmental quality and stability, and social progress" (NOAA 2003).

The main physical elements in the US CSDI include bathymetry, shoreline identification and marine cadastre, with other types of data being considered, such as coastal imagery, marine navigation, tidal benchmarks and benthic habitats (Lockwood and Fowler 2000). Bathymetric data is treated as a sub-layer of the "Elevation" layer data in the US NSDI Framework data. Marine cadastre is being examined by the FGDC Marine Boundary Working Group, which includes members of the FGDC Cadastral Subcommittee. Standards created or nearing completion for the US CSDI include the FGDC Shoreline Metadata Standard (FGDC 1998), the National Hydrography Data Content Standard for Inland and Coastal Waterways (FGDC 2000a) and Accuracy Standards for Nautical Charting Hydrographic Surveys (FGDC 2000b).

A report from the US Commission on Ocean Policy led one commissioner to comment on the tight connection between inland systems, such as development and agriculture, to traditionally designated coastal areas. "The coastal zone is not a narrow band. It's the whole country." (US CoOP 2002) The report also found a need for better links to the work of different disciplines offering a more integrated understanding of the marine environment and the processes that control it, including standardized practices and procedures. Supporting that conclusion is an interim report from the US National Research Council of the National Academies (National Academies 2003) focused specifically on national coastal mapping needs in the USA, which found that a key element of CSDI must be "A consistent spatial framework for coastal data that allows a seamless transition from onshore to offshore, including clarification of offshore boundary definitions." The National Academies interim report also found a need for better inter-agency communication, cooperation an coordination, greater compatibility amongst data formats, more comprehensive and more widely promulgated standards, easier access to disparate data sets and ways to evaluate accuracy of spatial data (National Academies 2003, p. 2). These very similar joint conclusions reinforce the argument that CSDI cannot be developed in isolation from broader NSDI goals and visions.

CSDI in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) launched an initiative for a national marine geospatial data infrastructure (MGDI) that was presented to stakeholders at a seminar in July 2003. At the seminar, UKHO commercial development manager John Pepper is reported to have "conceded that the present situation pertaining to geospatial data in the UK failed to meet the expectations of government, data providers or data users" (Geo:connexionUK 2003) and proposed a series of actions that UKHO will take to rectify the situation.

According to Pepper (2003), the MGDI will be "an electronic based service for geographic and geo referenced data which when combined becomes geospatial data." The UK MGDI will permit easy discovery and access to information and services and will possess "underlying framework data delivered via specific authoritative sources" from both government and industry. The MGDI should provide thematic data about "water depths, currents, tides, channel widths, seabed texture, sediment characteristics, temperature, wrecks, pipelines, cables, seabed obstructions, fish stock, coastal terrestrial data" … and more! It should also permit data extraction from diverse sources and the ability to integrate such data to permit new insights into problems and arrive at "innovative solutions."

The UK MGDI would be driven by distributed data resources from government, business and research organisations, accessed via metadata and a directory service operating through a discovery portal. The business model underpinning the UK MGDI would have to take account of the varying data access and information exploitation policies existing within the UK government. Currently, both topographic data from the Ordnance Survey and hydrographic data from the UK Hydrographic Office is made available on commercial terms with prices far in excess of the "distribution costs only" regimes operated in some countries in regard to public sector data. Also, many private-public partnerships have been created for value-adding and onward exploitation of both topographic and hydrographic data, especially when integrated, and such arrangements will have to be accommodated in the future implementation of the MGDI.

The UK Integrated Coastal Zone Mapping project (ICZMap), being undertaken by UKHO, OSGB and the British Geological Survey, is the first step towards a planned common digital framework for more than 10,000 km of UK coastline, covering a band from 20 km inshore to 5 km offshore, merging data currently held at different datum levels (Ordnance Datum inshore and Chart Datum offshore). The Integrated Coastal Hydrography project is conducting an audit of data holdings in shallow waters around the UK, identifying and validating data capture methodologies and creating a specification for consistent coverage of framework data around the UK coastline. This project is being conducted by UKHO, the Environment Agency, Ordnance Survey and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. (Prendergast 2003)

Development of the UK MGDI is at a very early stage, with most of the hard work still ahead. While the UK Hydrographic Office has been instrumental in developing the current MGDI dialogue in the UK, creation of a single, legally mandated, overarching coordinating body for such an initiative has not yet occurred. As evidenced by the projects already undertaken, there are several organisations and agencies to be involved in this initiative other than UKHO, including Ordnance Survey GB, DEFRA, the Environment Agency, Maritime and Coastguard Agency, British Geological Survey and national academic marine research councils. The Inter-Agency Committee on Marine Science and Technology monitors marine activities across national government.

CSDI in Canada
Canada has proposed a Marine Geospatial Data Infrastructure initiative (MGDI) within the national Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI, also called "GeoConnections") (Chopin and Costain 2001). MGDI is seen as an extension to the CGDI to respond to the "need for a comprehensive, integrated and common infrastructure of marine data and information … accessible to all stakeholders." Applications to be fostered under the MGDI include marine navigation and charting for pollution control, coastal zone management and environmental monitoring. The five technical and policy focuses for the CGDI include access, the data framework, standards, partnerships and creating a supportive policy environment. The CGDI vision is "to enable timely access to geo-info data holdings and services in support of policy, decision-making and economic development through a co-operative interconnected infrastructure of government, private sector and academia participants. From the outset, CGDI planners realized that "institutional issues will likely eclipse technology as an impediment to CGDI development and implementation" (Labonte et al 1998).

Canadian MGDI components include: data and information products, enabling technologies, network linkages, standards and institutional policies. The concept for an MGDI-like information infrastructure predates many existing national SDI initiatives, first appearing in 1988 as the "Inland waters, Coastal and Ocean Information Network (ICOIN)". The primary goal of the MGDI is "to enable simple, third party access to data and information that will facilitate more effective decision-making" (Gillespie et al 2000) for anyone involved in coastal zone management. Under the auspices of "GeoConnections", a Marine Advisory Committee was created in 1999 with the remit to ensure the full functionality of the CGDI in providing services to all marine stakeholders. To help achieve this goal, a Marine Advisory Network was set up to act as the physical focal point for stakeholder outreach and consultation (GeoConnections, 2003).

As in the USA vision, the Canadian MGDI recognizes the need for common standards so that data can be used seamlessly across disciplines and systems. Because most NSDIs focus on land-based data and issues, MGDI also recognizes that standards that work for land-based data are not always compatible with the coastal zone. MGDI proponents also know that simply making spatial data available across the Internet does not provide solutions to problems, but merely access to data, often of unknown quality, currency and fitness-for-purpose. Data pricing and related policy issues dealing with intellectual copyright will be crucial to the success of both CGDI and MDGI and these potential barriers may be more difficult to remove than are technical issues such as standards and interoperability of data.

The needs of users and potential stakeholders were identified more completely in an extensive requirements analysis study in 2001 (DFO, 2001). The resulting MGDI architecture includes:

Lack of resources and institutional barriers have hindered progress towards implementing the Canadian MGDI. However, similar barriers afflict implementation of the CGDI itself and also affect NSDI and CSDI implementations in many nations. Even the US Presidential Executive Order creating the USA NSDI did not offer any new money, rather all work to achieve the NSDI had to be conducted from within existing budgets. Many problems have surfaced in regard to implementing the US NSDI since that historic 1994 order was proclaimed, most focusing on lack of resources to implement the grand vision (Koontz 2003).

Regional CSDI in the European Union
At regional level, the INSPIRE project (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe) recognizes "hydrographic data" as one of its "selected topographic themes" for data content for a regional SDI for Europe (INSPIRE 2002). Hydrography is defined as "surface water features such as lakes and ponds, streams and rivers, canals, oceans and shorelines." One of the two legal mandates supporting implementation of INSPIRE is the EU Water Framework Directive (European Commission 2000c) under which harmonized and integrated water policy for all European Union Member States is to be achieved. The WFD places quite detailed monitoring and reporting requirements on Member States for the status of surface water in rivers, lakes, coastal waters and "transitional waters", i.e. estuaries and similar bodies of water which are partly saline but strongly influenced by freshwater flows. Under the WFD, quite detailed marine data is required (hydrography, flora, fauna, pollutants, etc.) to be collected, harmonised and reported to the European Commission via a "competent authority" on a regular, periodic basis. An entire set of detailed GIS specifications have been developed by which such reporting is to take place.

Surprisingly, the debate as to what level of coastal/marine data to include in the regional SDI initiative was taking place in parallel with (and often in ignorance of!) another major EU initiative focusing directly on the coastal zone - the EU Integrated Coastal Zone Management Recommendation (European Commission 2000a), adopted in 30 May 2002. This Recommendation (one level below a "Directive" in legal enforcement at pan-European level) followed the 1996 to 1999 EU-funded Demonstration Programme on Integrated Coastal Zone Management which led concurrently to the European Commission Communication of September 2000 "Integrated Coastal Zone Management: A Strategy for Europe" (European Commission 2000b). As a result of the EU ICZM Recommendation, all EU Member States must establish national ICZM strategies by February 2006. The Recommendation provides a set of common agreed principles and strategic elements to ensure coherence of strategies through Europe. It also identifies the basic steps of the implementation process and the main components that national strategies should address. Interestingly, the Recommendation focuses predominantly on organisational, institutional and funding (resource allocation) issues, more than data content, standards, and related technical implementation issues.

To confuse matters for coastal zone managers and government marine science agencies responsible for implementing both the EU Water Framework Directive and the ICZM Recommendation, the actual data requirements of the two initiatives are different and reporting is required at different geographic scales, i.e. 1:250,000 for the WFD and 1:100,000 for the ICZM Recommendation. This is a good example of the result of absence of a single overarching coordinating body for pan-European coastal zone initiatives and problems.

CSDI at Global Level
At global level, two main SDI initiatives have been the Global Mapping Project and the GSDI conferences (1996 to present). Both of these initiatives build on national and/or regional SDI work and neither makes any special provision for coastal zone data. What amounts to a global SDI does exist for oceanographic and meteorological data due to long established information management and data exchange programmes of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and other international research initiatives (Longhorn 2003). In 2002, the IOC attempted to reinforce and extend its data exchange standards and policies to the coastal zone, as compared to deep ocean research. These efforts were partially blocked by certain IOC member states who were not in favour of releasing such information, especially at any level of detail, regarding their coastal zones for both economic and security reasons. This is yet another example of the type of institutional barriers that arise regarding data access when moving beyond national borders.

CSDI Commonalities and Drivers
Reviewing the CSDI (or MGDI) initiatives currently underway in the countries and regions examined in this paper reveals many commonalities in specifying the elements needed in a CSDI and the issues to be resolved or goals to be reached. These include:

Note that many CSDI/MGDI initiatives are developing in response to, or under legal mandates deriving from, environmental programmes, especially involving water management. For example, the US CSDI initiative is intended to help identify the basic reference data needed to achieve goals for national programs such as the Clean Water Action Plan - Coastal Research and Monitoring Strategy, which represents "the first effort to integrate coastal monitoring and research activities on a national scale to provide thorough, cross-cutting assessments of the health of the nation's coastal resources" (CRMSW 2000). The goals for the CWA Plan include:

The UK MGDI initiative derives some of its urgency from the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) Marine Stewardship Report (DEFRA 2002) which includes an environmental policy goal of "clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse oceans and seas."
The pan-European INSPIRE initiative, while building on the prior work of earlier EU-funded projects and initiatives (GI2000, ETeMII), received its earliest legal mandate from the EU institutions as a direct result of the EU Water Framework Directive (European Commission 2000c). The WFD followed five years of consultation and negotiations for implementing a pan-European integrated water policy for all EU Member States (now 15, soon to be 25).
As fresh water management and scarcity become ever more serious problems at global level, we can expect many more nations to underpin their fledgling CSDI/MGDI initiatives with political support and funding directly related to this critical issue.

CSDI Success?
Most coastal spatial data infrastructure (CSDI) or marine geospatial data infrastructure (MGDI) initiatives are still relatively new, even in those nations with advanced NSDI programmes underway. The general path towards implementing CSDI/MGDI appears to follow the route of vision to strategy to standards for data collection and dissemination leading hopefully to final interoperability across data stores, applications, agencies and organisations.

Barriers to successful CSDI/MGDI implementations reviewed to date include:

The coastal zone management, hydrographic, geological and geographic information communities and stakeholders can do much to implement individual components of a national or regional coastal SDI or marine GDI. However, the legal problems and institutional barriers to be overcome require awareness and strong support at the highest levels of government for national information infrastructure (NII) in support of national and regional Information Society goals, for spatial data infrastructure (SDI) development within the NII and then for coastal SDI development within the NSDI. Such layered information infrastructure implies - and requires - an overarching umbrella coordinating infrastructure with sufficient resources to make sure that all stakeholders' needs can be met, even if only in some far distant future. Such high-level coordination is absent from most national NII and SDI initiatives today.

The CZM community should be aware that their input, based on knowledge and experience of the coastal zone, is imperative during specification of SDI initiatives, whether at national, regional or global level. As a lesson, consider that during the 5-year period that the European SDI progressed from the GI2000 initiative (1995-1999) through ETeMII (European Territorial Management Information Infrastructure - 1999-2001) to INSPIRE (2001 to present), reference to specific themes for spatial data content in the proposed SDI specification was initially resisted. After much debate, the hydrographic component (including coastal zones) was included, along with only two other "topographic themes" - transport and height.

References