Celts, Romans and Coasts:
a Brief History of the CoastGIS Initiative

Ron Furness (1), Darius Bartlett (2)

(1) International Cartographic Association's Commission on Marine Cartography (AU)
(2) International Geographical Union's Commission on Coastal Systems, and Department of Geography, University College Cork (IE)

The idea for a series of symposia entitled CoastGIS was born from the fruitful ideas of Darius Bartlett in discussions with Ron Furness following their first meeting at an International Cartographic Conference in Cologne, Germany during 1993. The former was seeking to find a vehicle in which coastal issues and technological processes could be examined while the latter sought a similar means by which the mapping of the world's coastal zones could find an outlet. Both authors were particularly interested in the then early potential of Geographic Information Systems in offering, as they did, great opportunities for data access, manipulation and presentation as well as data management for those entrusted with making decisions that impacted on the use of the world's coasts by humans.

The title "CoastGIS" was suggested by Darius Bartlett and the first Symposium of the series came to fruition, after many hundreds of faxes and letters between the authors, one in Ireland and the other in the Antipodes, and was held successfully at University College Cork in February 1995. As an event it was part of the University College Cork celebrations marking its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. Something like two hundred delegates participated.

The first four conferences, without design on the part of those involved in their organisation, carried a Celtic connection: Ireland (Cork, 1995), Scotland (Aberdeen, 1997), France (Brest, 1999) and Canada (Halifax, 2001). In 2003 we find ourselves back in Europe, on the Ligurian coast, in Italy with its long coastline and history of coastal tradition where we shall be hosted by our Italian friends. At this fifth symposium and after a decade, it seems worthwhile reviewing the brief history of the event.

At the first meeting on Cork we had the honour of being addressed in a keynote presentation by Lord Chorley, who referred in his address to the House of Commons Environment Select Committee's 1992 Report on coastal zone protection and planning. Reflecting on the findings of that Report, Lord Chorley was struck by three main points.

First, it is only in recent years that the coastal zone has been recognised as one important topic in its own right. Second, the huge range of relevant aspects or considerations. (Thirdly): the huge number of agencies involved, often with overlapping and perhaps incompatible responsibilities, jurisdictions and objectives."
(CoastGIS'95, Proceedings, p.5)

The reader will no doubt be well aware of the amazing developments of GIS capability over the last decade in particular. The development of standards, formats and data models together with the sheer genius of GIS technological developments and ultimate cost effectiveness are perhaps still hampered by the paucity of available data sets. Or are they?

We believe that symposia such as the CoastGIS series have more than "done their bit" in promoting the notion of coastal zones as well as highlighting many of the impacting issues which are so significant for the future management of our coasts. In bringing about, as they do, a sharing international environment, free of many of the constraints frequently present in more formalised gatherings, they offer a supportive venue in which practitioners and academics can compare their works and techniques. There remains, as Lord Chorley identified, and extraordinarily large range of relevant aspects or considerations: hardly any human activity occurs without some impact, ultimately, on the world's fragile coastal zones. One thing that has remained true is the huge number of agencies with some jurisdiction and impact on coastal zones. Incredibly not all these agencies may well even be aware of their ultimate responsibilities to the coasts.

The authors will make a broad synopsis of developments in coast GIS over the last decade and will review the previous four CoastGIS symposia for pointers to the future. Is there more or less need for such gatherings? Do the networks they engender bring about positive changes in the way people approach their work around the coasts, be it academic, practical or planning?
A brief paper will be offered to support the authors' findings

Sydney and Cork, 2003