From Rio to Johannesburg: the Role of Coastal GIS

Adalberto Vallega,

First Vice-President, International Geographical Union
University of Genoa, Faculty of Architecture, Department Polis (IT)

This paper aims at discussing the evolving role of coastal GIS vis-à-vis: (i) the inputs from the 2001 Millennium Declaration by the United Nations and the 2002 Plan of Implementation adopted by the World Summit of Sustainable Development (WSSD), together with some associated materials from inter-governmental organisations; (ii) the changing approach to coastal integrated management (ICM), and (iii) the proclivity to use indicators in this field.
A starting basis (Table 1) is designed, where the background approaches and concepts arising from three turnaround events, namely, the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment, the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), and the 2002 WSSD, are considered. This leads to discuss the evolution to the representation and understanding of coastal reality, the subsequent inputs in designing the coastal system and coastal management, and the geographical coverage of coastal plans and management strategies. Bearing this breakdown in mind, the need for scientific assessment arising from the political milieus is taken into account. Four key needs are examined: (i) the need to closely refer the coastal system to the external environment, both regarded as realities undergoing to climate change (natural external environment) and globalisation (socio-economic external environment); (ii) the need to consider the environmental component of the coastal system according to an ecological perspective, where the properties of the trophic webs, particularly biodiversity, are the foci; (iii) the need to include the cultural heritage in the framework of representations of the coastal system; and (iv) the need to optimise the decision-making system conforming it to the sustainable development principle (ecological integrity, economic efficiency, and social inter- and intra-generational equity).
This discussion is framed into a breakdown where the evolution in coastal management is compared to those that, since the late 1950s, have been characterising the Information Technology (IT) including Geographical Information Systems (GIS), and the Internet technology. It leads to design a stage-based model where the management approach to the coastal system is conceived as a pathway parallel to those of GIS and Internet. As a matter fact, these three processes have proceeded along concurrent pathways moving from a pre-take off stage, which marked the 1960s, to the take-off and drive to maturity stages, to berth to the present maturity stage. This stage-based approach justifies believing that a thirty-year process, during which the demand of research - expressed by the improving concept of coastal management, and the increasing availability of technical tools, based on GIS and Internet technology -have reached a turnaround point.

1972: UN Conference on the Human Environment
Background materials	Declaration on the Human Environment
Main consequences	Environmental protection claimed as the key issue. Following the USA Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA, 1972), the wave of national provisions on coastal management arose
Background approach	Sector-related approach to management and planning operated. Only a few cardinal coastal resources considered. Pollution and coastal erosion regarded as the fulcrum of environmental policy
Geographical coverage	Only a strict coastal fringe assumed as the coastal coverage for management plans and actions. Administrative (landwards) and jurisdictional (seawards) criteria, or arbitrary criteria (iso-distance lines from coastlines or baselines, applied
1992 : UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED)
Background materials	Convention on Climate Change Convention on Biological Diversity Agenda 21, Chapter 17
Main consequences	The contextual pursuit of ecological integrity and economic development adopted. Coastal management programmes on the national and local scales diffused. Climate change, and subsequent impacts on the coastal systems, regarded as the cardinal issue of the external environment. Human pressure on the coastal zone considered as a crucial issue. The holistic consideration of the resource use structure increasingly perceived as essential. Coastal management guidelines circulated by the UN organisations and programmes.
Background approach	Integrated coastal management, as recommended by Agenda 21, Paragraph 17.3, adopted
Geographical coverage	Coverage of management programmes widened, particularly seawards, where the jurisdictional zones, including the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), have been progressively regarded as relevant.
2002: World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)
Background materials	Final Declaration Plan of Implementation
Main consequences	Climate change, and its subsequent impacts on coastal systems, better monitored and understood. Ecological integrity increasingly regarded as the first essential prerequisite to pursue sustainable development. Coastal areas regarded as key spaces to ensure food security. The protection of indigenous techniques on fisheries, and on other coastal uses, regarded as essential to coastal sustainable development.
Background approach	Integrated management assumed as the contextual pursuit of ecological integrity, economic efficiency, and cultural diversity protection
Geographical coverage	Trends triggered by the UNCED-related materials continued in order to widen the geographical coverage, seawards covering extended jurisdictional zones, and landwards covering the river basins
Related cardinal events: 2001: Convention on the protection of underwater cultural heritage
Background materials	Convention on the protection of underwater cultural heritage
Main consequences	Submarine cultural heritage included in the whole world cultural heritage under protection; State coastal state’s stewardship encouraged to widen; Submarine landscape assumed as relevant to management

 

In order to explore the prospects inherent to the present conditions, a double question is discussed: (i) what scientific subjects have just arisen, and what are going to arise, from the political arena, and, as a result, (ii) what challenges are expected be dealt with by the scientific community. As regards the former question, the intimate nature the coastal GIS representation is taken into consideration framing it into a triangle of representation which embraces : (i) coastal reality (the ontological component of coastal knowledge building), (ii) the representation, consisting in signs having a metaphorical role vis-à-vis reality (the semiotic dimension of coastal knowledge building), and (iii) the signified attributed to the representation, consisting of explanations and theories (the hermeneutical dimension of coastal knowledge building). Where a mono-semic, deterministic relationship is supposed linking the sign with the signified, a modern, rationalist representation takes place, according to which objectivist knowledge is presumed to be built. This kind of representation is congenial to the present speculative background on which coastal GIS, like any kind of GIS, are based. It is adequate to represent ecological and socio-economic realities, in that relying to the relevant components of the sustainability principle - ecological integrity, and economic efficiency - but it is no so adequate to represent the coastal culture, which cannot be framed in rationalist, objectivism-inspired, approaches. The alternative option is a representation postulating a poly-semic linkage between the sign and signified. This does not lead to explanations but towards something weaker, which could be called the coastal discourse. Therefore it is adequate to build up subject-referred representations, in that meeting the need to focus on culture, which is pertinent to the third component of sustainable development, i.e. social intra- and inter-generational equity. Bearing in mind that, following some inputs from the WSSD materials, and from recent UNESCO materials, culture is expected to acquire an increasing role in coastal representations, the need to integrate the explication- and discourse-aimed background approaches may be regarded as crucial.
Inputs from the inter-governmental organisations to coastal management lead also to discuss how three scales may be jointly taken into account in coastal GIS building: (i) the thematic scale, according to which representation moves from the cognitive to the prospective and the normative levels; (ii) the geographical scale embracing the global, national and local spaces; and (ii) the time scale embracing past and future with reference to natural and socio-economic processes.
This discussion is completed by sketching a menu of questions challenging coastal science and, in particular, coastal GIS: (i) the prospect of considering the external environment, which the coastal system is linked with, as the starting basis for coastal GIS-representation, in that reverting the conventional approach, where the coastal system is considered first, and then some attention to the external environment is posed; (ii) the need to represent the natural processes, as well as the interaction between human communities and Nature, using the concept of cycle; (iii) the increasing need to provide knowledge of the natural features and processes of the coastal system focusing on its ecological conditions; (iv) the utility of considering the resource uses according to holistic criteria, namely as structures where elements are linked by relationships of various content, from conflicting to beneficial. Moving from this breakdown, two tentative ranges of subjects are considered, respectively leading to building up objectivist and subjectivist representations of coastal reality.
As regards the objectivism-supposed knowledge building, a triptych of issues is considered essential for improving coastal GIS: (i) the coastal population growth with special consideration of urbanisation processes, where megacities have played the role of fulcra; (ii) human security considering it as embracing food and health security, both closely relevant to freshwater management; (iii) coastal natural disasters and extreme events, focusing on the impacts from climate change and human pressure. The need to build up indicators to monitor and evaluate the above-mentioned processes is discussed bearing in mind that: (i) the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) adopted the Driving Force-State-Response (DSR) model, (ii) this model was conceived by the UNCSD with reference to the national scale; (iii) it has been essentially adopted in dealing with ecological processes and conditions, while less attention has been attributed to socio-economic processes, and culture has been left in the background.
As regards the prospect of building subjectivism-implemented knowledge in representations provided by coastal GIS, attention is attributed to some recently-designed inputs from the UNESCO, focusing on their relevance to intangible culture and cultural landscape. The concept of cultural landscape is considered jointly with the design of the 2000 European Landscape Convention (ELC). These subjects lead to frame intellectual and spiritual manifestations into possible coastal GIS designs. The triggering role of this prospect is due to the fact the such manifestations cannot be investigated by using positivism-, structuralism- and general system-inspired criteria. How problematic would be the design of indicators is also discussed. As a conclusion, a multi-faced fascinating, but theoretically and methodologically demanding, prospect comes to the fore. It includes three discussion arenas: (i) the ontological arena, consisting of changing coastal reality, (ii) the semiotic one, consisting in the role of representation, and (iii) the hermeneutical one, consisting in the production of signified moving from representation. The more science will be able to deal with these arenas contextually, the more coastal GIS will gain effectiveness.