Application Fields and Data Preparation for the Web-Based Coastal GIS Of Puck Lagoon - Southern Baltic

Jacek Urbanski, Katarzyna Bradtke

University of Gdansk, Institute of Oceanography, Gdynia (PL)

The web-based GIS solution allows wider access to GIS spatial analysis tools. These tools proved to be useful in data processing and analyses as well as in application of decision support procedures during the last decades. The increasing awareness of oceanographers to new useful research and management tools is a result of integration of GIS and oceanography. The aim of the project is to create a web-based GIS system for a small but essential part of the Polish coast of South Baltic, to describe the potential end-users of the system and determine application fields for them.
The Puck Lagoon is an essential area of research and management. It is considered to be a green star spot in the European biodiversity research program. Several species, like the common seal, are currently being reintroduced. It is also a place of many conflicts between environment and man. In some parts of the Lagoon strong erosion is a threat to coastal infrastructures. Nearly half a million people live in vicinity of the Lagoon and its coasts are flooded by tourists every summer. The Puck Lagoon is a place of diverse research projects of several research institutes and the University of Gdansk.
The potential users are:

The researchers should be able to perform an analysis in the scale of the whole lagoon. The background layers for planning experiments and supporting interdisciplinary analyses were established as: bathymetry, sediments, salinity (at surface and bottom), temperature scenarios, coastline and rivers. The professionals may need to work in a bigger scale (probably in scale of tenth of meters) analyzing the process and tendencies of erosion and accumulation, potential flooding threat, localization of endangered species (plants and animals), water discharge from rivers and channels outlets and emergency response for oil spills. It follows that more information about the coast will be needed. This may be obtained by aerial photo background. The following layers were prepared to work in this scale (for one testing area the length of about 5 km): bathymetry and DTM map of land, rivers, roads, buildings, changes of coastline (the last 50 years), water discharge and flooding.
The web-based GIS was created using HTML Viewer of ArcIMS 4.0 ESRI software. The map preparation was done using ArcMap with extensions: Spatial Analyst and Geostatistical Analyst. Because of some limits of the Geostatistical Analyst extension geostatistical software library GSLIB was also used. Some additional analyses during data preparation were performed using IDRISI GIS software. There were tree main sources of data in project: remote sensing data (aerial photo made every 10 years during the last 50 years and AVHRR SST maps), secondary data (vector coverage of land in coastal areas - rivers, buildings, roads and coastline) and primary data - oceanography measurements of temperature and salinity during the last 20 years and survey measurements.
The quality of the system depends on the functionality of layers, which creates space for possible applications. Geostatistics offers the cokriging method which in presence of strong correlation between salinity and depth, was applied to create a map of bottom distribution of salinity, using salinity measurements as primary data and bathymetry as secondary data. The PCA analyses of AVHRR SST maps were used to create maps of typical scenarios of temperature distribution on the surface. The time series of aerial photographs was used to estimate erosion and accumulation processes and their tendencies during the last 50 years. The probabilistic method was used to create maps of flooding probability for different sea level scenarios.
There are several possible applications of the system and some of them have been demonstrated. The system may be used in planning the position of a sampling station. Especially if the station should include all possible combinations of several factors like: sediments, salinity, and distance from the coast. The system may also be used to determine local erosion for a particular part of the coast which may be helpful in coastal zone management and costal protection planning. Flooding probability analyses is the next useful possibility of this on-line system. It is also possible to use this system in emergency planning and response actions during toxic waste discharge.
Some attempts were also made to find out how the end users are prepared to use the system, and what should be done to make the system a more useful tool for the community.

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