FUNDAMENTAL CONTENTS OF COASTAL GIS- THE CASE FOR A MARINE CADASTRE

(1) David Monahan, (2) Sue Nichols

(1) Canadian Hydrographic Service, Ottawa (CA)
(2) Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering, University of New Brunswick, (CA)

Abstract
As the use of Coastal GIS grows and gains wider acceptance, subject matter experts and their organizations are creating an increasing number of specialized layers. Conventionally, these are used in conjunction with what may be termed "fundamental" layers, such as shoreline, topography and bathymetry. One layer that we believe to be fundamental to all Coastal GIS is one containing legal boundaries, which may be termed the cadastral layer. Although cadastres are well established on land, a great deal of work remains to be done in the marine field before GIS users can confidently rely on a layer containing boundaries. For GIS purposes, a marine cadastre can be defined as a database that would support a GIS layer that at its display level would show the physical locations of boundaries, and at a deeper level would be supported by information on legal and legislative elements of rights, responsibilities, and restrictions to the areas circumscribed by those boundaries. This paper describes the advantages of a marine cadastre and the steps in building one, based on research carried out by our two organizations in Canadian waters.

A marine cadastre would help clarify jurisdictional complexity in Coastal Zones, would provide the basis for identifying and involving the wide variety of stakeholders involved in co-management of Coastal Zones, would be the basis for managing construction of structures and required easements and rights-of- way, and could help prevent ownership issues from becoming contentious. For many GIS users, the ability to call up a fundamental cadastral layer would permit rapid and appropriate application of their special subject matter within a legally defined zone.

Boundaries in coastal areas are frequently confused and overlapping. In part, this reflects the unique nature of the Coastal Zone; for example, cases like that of a moored raft that is under one jurisdiction while floating but under a different jurisdiction when the tide goes out and the raft sits on the exposed sea floor could occur in no other environment. In part it reflects difficulties with legal and legislative terminology: for example, unless specified in the definition, words like "shoreline" and "low water" are open to an array of interpretation. In part, this reflects the fact that few boundaries have been made final through the process of being tested in a court of law (although it must be said that some of those that have been the subject of court cases have not been made any clearer.)

In addition to the need to clarify these legal questions, technical issues that still need to be addressed include: the need to integrate data from diverse sources scattered among departments of all levels of government in a variety of forms and formats without common standards, the need for base data related to the physical space or location of the resources based on full coverage maps of the ocean floor and water column, and the four- dimensional nature of some marine boundaries which have a time varying dimension.

Our research into solving these problems moved out of the theoretical sphere and into that of application through our investigations of boundaries within a Marine Protected Area, the first in Canada to have a Coastal Zone component. In this MPA, boundaries are promulgated from three levels of Government with their attendant regulations, covering topics as diverse as property, rights, environmental protection, resource use, and aboriginal claims. The boundaries are defined in words referring to physical features, some real, some hypothetical, some easily identified, some unknown. The paper explains how we addressed these and structured them into a pilot for a marine cadastre and the boundary layer for a Coastal GIS.
Introduction

Effective management and good governance in coastal zones must be based on knowing who has rights of use, ownership, and stewardship, who has the right to make and enforce decisions offshore, and where can that authority be exercised. Having such knowledge requires having accurate spatially-referenced, up to date information on boundaries within the coastal zone. Boundary information is also needed for co-management schemes and integrated coastal planning by demonstrating where overlapping authorities exist.

As is the case for most Coastal States, Canada's marine territories are a mosaic of jurisdictional, administrative, and property boundaries from high water to the edge of the continental shelf. Most boundaries are defined only in laws, while a few are represented on maps and charts. We do not yet have a complete list of boundaries in marine areas nor do we have an understanding of the complexities of the interplay between the various coastal and offshore boundaries. With extended national jurisdiction offshore embodied in the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), these areas have re-emerged as new territories to be explored, exploited, protected and shared.

Despite this clear need, there is as yet no central repository or data base for boundary information in the coastal zone. Hydrographic (navigation) charts are the source of much basic information in the offshore and provide some of this information, but their primary role is to support safe navigation. Like topographic maps on land, their boundary information is not complete. On land, boundaries are captured in the cadastre; there is a growing need to extend the cadastre into marine areas or to create an entirely new "marine cadastre".(Ng'ang'a et al. 2003)

Boundaries in space
A boundary is generally regarded to be a line of separation between at least two spatial elements each of which have certain characteristics. (Lamden and Rijcke 1989; Prescott 1985)

The boundary making process
On land, boundary delimitation comprises three steps: 1) definition, or specifying the "locus" of the boundary in the wording of law, 2) delineation, describing the location of the boundary on maps or by co-ordinates and 3) demarcation, the process of physically marking the geographical location of a boundary. (Nichols 1983) On land, demarcation is easily conceptualized, but in the marine environment, demarcation in situ is rarely possible; consequently demarcation is of necessity combined with delineation, and the medium most frequently used for this combination is the hydrographic chart. The delineated boundary on a chart or in an official GIS provides the "public notice" function that fences and survey monuments do on land. (Monahan and Nichols 2002)

The ICZM needs information on rights and boundaries
Much of the emphasis in ICZM is on coastal resources and their relationships to the natural environment and human activities. Coastal planners, like their counterparts on land, make or influence decisions about what activities can take place, where, and by whom as part of their management plan. Implementation of the coastal plan therefore affects the existing regimes of rights, restrictions, and responsibilities (i.e., coastal tenure). Implementation may take away rights, may grant new rights, create or eliminate rights holders, or restrict or expand what the rights holders can do. Yet information about those rights, restrictions, and responsibilities is frequently ignored in coastal planning processes.

Part of the reason for the lack of tenure information is that the information is fragmented among many government agencies at several levels. However, it is also because planners and others may not understand the complexity of the tenure regime, or knowing it is complex decide to avoid it. A third reason is the fact that often the spatial extent of the interests -- i.e., the area defined by boundaries and limits -- is ambiguous, undefined, or in dispute.

We, however, argue that ICZM must take the tenure regime and the underlying jurisdictional and administrative framework into account. And to do this effectively Coastal GISs need to include coastal tenure as a fundamental building block, similar to the foundation layers of topography or bathymetry. (see, for example, Nichols et al. 2000)

Characteristics of marine boundaries
Marine boundaries and limits have a number characteristics that distinguish them from most boundaries on land:

The boundaries may or may not be final - As coastal nations extend jurisdiction seaward, boundaries and limits may be 'claimed' but not confirmed. These include outward limits, boundaries between nations, and limits of national, provincial/state, and municipal interests.

Boundaries may be in dispute, uncertain, or incomplete: In coastal areas there are myriad historical interests (e.g., held by individuals, communities, etc.) that may be uncertain or in dispute. In addition there are interests that are being newly recognized such as aboriginal title which may not have a strict spatial definition. The datasets of coastal tenure are also frequently incomplete either in terms of spatial coverage or types of interests.

The boundaries are complex because the tenure interests overlap and are 3-4 dimensional: We are familiar with a 2-D map illustrating boundaries and jurisdictional limits. But how do you translate that image to include three dimensions and how do you show that marine interests held by different stakeholders co-exist spatially?

Boundaries may move with time and frequently refer to natural features. Natural features are used on land to define property rights and jurisdictional limits. In coastal regions, however, almost all boundaries refer directly or indirectly to a natural feature, the primary feature being the elusive 'coastline'. The coastline moves with time - do the other boundaries also move? The coastline or shoreline also means different things to different people, and consequently our coastal databases are filled with coastline segments collected by different methods, for a variety of purposes, and with an often unknown degree of quality assurance.

Types of marine and coastal zone boundaries
The plethora of boundaries that exist within marine space include (but are not limited to) boundaries and limits for:

The sources of boundaries and limits
Marine boundaries exist in a variety of media produced by a range of authorities, including:

The concept of a "Marine Cadastre"
Although cadastres are well established on land, a great deal of work remains to be done in the marine field before GIS users can confidently rely on a layer containing boundaries. (Ng'ang'a et al. 2003)
Definition of a marine cadastre for GIS purposes

A database that would support a GIS layer that at its display level would show the physical locations of boundaries and limits, and at a deeper level would be supported by information on legal and legislative elements of rights, responsibilities, and restrictions to the areas circumscribed by those boundaries.

Advantages afforded by a marine cadastre
A marine cadastre would help clarify jurisdictional complexity in Coastal Zones, would provide the basis for identifying and involving the wide variety of stakeholders involved in co-management of Coastal Zones, would be the basis for managing construction of structures and required easements and rights-of- way, and could help prevent ownership issues from becoming contentious. For many GIS users, the ability to call up a fundamental cadastral layer would permit rapid and appropriate application of their special subject matter within a legally defined zone.

The steps in building a Marine Cadastre
Boundaries in coastal areas are frequently confused and overlapping. In part, this reflects the unique nature of the Coastal Zone; for example, cases like that of a moored raft that is under one jurisdiction while floating but under a different jurisdiction when the tide goes out and the raft sits on the exposed sea floor could occur in no other environment. In part it reflects difficulties with legal and legislative terminology: for example, unless specified in the definition, words like "shoreline" and "low water" are open to an array of interpretation. In part, this reflects the fact that few boundaries have been made final through the process of being tested in a court of law (although it must be said that some of those that have been the subject of court cases have not been made any clearer.)

In addition to the need to clarify these legal questions, technical issues that still need to be addressed include: the need to integrate data from diverse sources scattered among departments of all levels of government in a variety of forms and formats without common standards, the need for base data related to the physical space or location of the resources based on full coverage maps of the ocean floor and water column, and the four- dimensional nature of some marine boundaries which have a time varying dimension.

Principles for a Marine Cadastre
The following principles for a marine cadastre were derived by the authors for the International Workshop on Marine Cadastre held in Canada in Sept. 2004

1. Should Deal with Multiple Types of Interests
2. Should Have Participation from Many Stakeholders and from Multiple Levels of Government
3. Should be Based on an Information Custodian Model and will need a Champion
4. Should Not Wait until all Marine Claims/Issues are Settled
5. Should be a Central Part of any Marine Geospatial Infrastructure
6. Should be Built on "good base data" and use Visualization Tools
7. Should Be Rights-Driven Rather than Boundary-Driven

Boundary issues accentuated in the Coastal Zone

Unresolved Policy Issues
These are the most difficult to solve and the easiest to avoid, yet they must eventually be resolved if we are truly to make progress. They include:

1. Location(s) of the Coastal and Marine Policy Interface

2. Clarification of all boundary definitions for property rights and jurisdictional limits to ensure that these boundaries can be relocated consistently and with technical reliability in the future.
3. Clarification of any aboriginal rights in coastal areas.
4. Development of improved administrative arrangements so that policies, legislation, regulations, property rights, and information management are not unnecessarily compartmentalized by a traditional land/sea boundary;
5. The Ambulatory Boundary (and Feature) Problem including the impact of Sea Level Rise
6. How to represent overlapping and non- coexistent boundaries.

Unresolved Technical Issues
The degree to which these can be addressed depends to a large extent on resolving inter-jurisdictional issues and on a commitment of resources nationally and provincially. The priorities include:
1. Development of a comprehensive program to delimit the extended continental shelf within 10 years;
2. Adequacy of national baselines (ie "Baselines from which the breadth of the Territorial Sea is measured" in UNCLOS terminology);
3. Resolution of the issues surrounding delimitation of offshore rights by co-ordinates;
4. Research to develop and enhance existing technologies and procedures for collecting, displaying, and managing boundary and limit information, including techniques that would allow users to better visualize and understand the overlapping and complex sets of coastal property rights and to integrate this information with other marine data required for planning and decision-making.
5. Agreement on what "shoreline" means or agreement on which of several shorelines can be applied in different circumstances.

Example based on research carried out in Canadian waters
Our research into solving these problems moved out of the theoretical sphere and into that of application through our investigations of boundaries within a Marine Protected Area, the first in Canada to have a Coastal Zone component. In this MPA, boundaries are promulgated from three levels of Government with their attendant regulations, covering topics as diverse as property, rights, environmental protection, resource use, and aboriginal claims. The legal boundaries are defined in words referring to physical features, some real, some hypothetical, some easily identified, some unknown. Furthermore, we were able to investigate natural geomorphic or sedimentological boundaries, surficial habitat boundaries using acoustic backscatter and bottom roughness, and boundaries in the water column, and examine their coincidence with the straight boundaries. (Byrne et al. 2002; Monahan et al. 2003). We have used this research as a pilot for a marine cadastre and the boundary layer for a Coastal GIS.

Conclusions
1. Knowledge of all boundaries and limits within the coastal zone is fundamental to appropriate integrated coastal zone management and good governance.
2. Marine boundaries and limits are, at present, poorly understood and even more poorly assembled and represented spatially.
3. On land, many if not all boundary problems are addressed through a cadastre. We believe this concept can be extended offshore.
4. A cadastre would appear as one layer in the coastal GIS, but a fundamental layer as the one of the bases for evaluating economic, environmental, or social actions and decisions.
5. There are many issues to be resolved and research to be conducted before a comprehensive marine cadastre can be built.

References