Integration Of The SWOT Analysis As A Coastal Management Tool With A Geographical Information System: Two Approaches To The Problem And First Results

Autore principale, Giuliano Fierro

Dipartimento per lo studio del Territorio e delle sue Risorse (Dip.Te.Ris.) University of Genova (IT)

The aim of this project is to introduce the SWOT analyisis as a tool for Coastal Area Management and its potentiality of integration with a GIS system.
SWOT analysis, where SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats was first used in the ´70s as a tool for business management (Porter, Harvard University).
In recent times the SWOT analysis has reached wider fields of application, and it is commonly used to identify features and to solve conflicts in the territory.
The most common approach is to make a qualitative SWOT analysis, describing Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats identified in the territory; this approach had also been used in Coastal Management projects, such as the MECO Project (Scapini et al., 2000).
Another approach is the quantitative one, and a first effort for the standardization of this tool had been made by various groups of experts (first standardization workshop", March 30-31, Cumanà, Venezuela, "recreational beach management workshop" April 10-14 2000, Isla Margarita, Venezuela).
Lately, a collaboration between the DIPTERIS and the Marine Science Faculty of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, lead us to the application of this management tool to two coastal areas of the Canary Islands (2002, graduate dissertation: Quantitative SWOT Analysis Applied To Beach Environments: A Tool For Integrated Coastal Area Management. Case studies: The Corralejo And Jandia Beaches, Canary Islands).

This project made clear the potentiality of spacial analysis of SWOT parameters and we started from this point to identify the ways a SWOT management tool can be combined with a GIS.
We have identified two different approaches to the integration of the two tools and we have chosen the Corralejo beach as a pilot site of application of these approaches.
The beaches and dune fields of Corralejo, the pilot site where the SWOT analysis had been first applied, constitute the "Parque Natural de las Dunas de Corralejo", an important natural park characterized by the presence of important endemic terrestrial and marine biocenosis, and it represents a peculiar system governed by the eolian sand dynamics.

The first approach (SWOT to GIS) is represented by an integration of the standard SWOT results obtained in the previous project through the georeferenziation and revision of the environmental impact data.
A short explaination is necessary to better understand this point: a quantitative SWOT analysis is made by the Strengths calculation (using environmental quality indicators) Weaknesses calculation (using environmental vulnerability indicators) Threats calculation (with the opposition of Environmental parameters to human interventions in the territory) and Opportunities analysis and calculation (with a numerical simulation of projects and interventions, aiming to decrease environmental impacts recorded in the Threats evaluation).
These considerations lead to the choice of morfodynamic indicators to be spacially referred in a GIS, representing the environmental parameters most affected by human interventions; this first approach (SWOT to GIS) can also be used as a way to review and recalibrate SWOT standard indicators.

The second approach (GIS to SWOT) is represented by the use of a GIS system to characterize the SWOT parameters of the territory, with a qualitative approach at first, then with the calculation of SWOT parameters taking advantage of the calculation potentiality of a GIS system; the characterization of these parameters follows the typical steps of a SWOT analysis, with two objectives: the indentification of Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats and Opportunities using a spacial analysis and the identification of new environmental parameters to be used as quantitative indicators.