Applications of Web-based GIS to Coastal Zone Management

David R. Green

University of Aberdeen (UK)

Abstract

Powerful information technology (IT) tools now support the development, creation, operation, and use of online geographic information systems for coastal management. Information technology has greatly enhanced the data into information pathway providing both the means and tools to collect data, to process it rapidly, and to communicate the results of analyses more effectively to a wider community with interests in the coastal environment. In recent years, rapid developments in the geospatial technologies have improved mobile data collection, information processing, modeling, and the visualization of information in new, interesting, and informative ways. The Internet has opened up the potential for the development of online portals to data and information and GIS and decision support tools to provide greater access to information and with it the potential to empower the coastal manager and practitioner, and to inform the policy and decision-maker as well as the public. Coupled with the capability to gather higher resolution data from remote sensing, to process, integrate and visualize environmental data within a GIS, and the use of GIS as a data handling tool for spatial analysis and modeling it has provided the basis for monitoring, mapping and modeling the coastal environment. In the future, practical application of the geospatial technologies will continue to grow rapidly providing a suite of spatial information delivery and visualization tools to aid the coastal manager and practitioner in the workplace and to enable greater public participation.

This paper presents a brief overview of Internet or Web-based GIS and some of the different ways in which it is currently being used, together with the other geospatial technologies, for Integrated Coastal Management (ICM). A brief definition of Web-based GIS is followed by an examination of the various different technologies involved, the basic components of a web-based GIS application, and some of the different software now available to achieve this. Finally, a number of examples, drawn from around the World, are introduced to illustrate the paper and to provide operational evidence for the use of Internet-based GIS to access, process, and visualize information for coastal areas.