Regulatory aspects
Introduction
The Instituto Espanol de Oceanograffia (IEO) and the General Secretary
ofMaritime Fishing (SGPM) from Ministry of Agriculture, Fishing and
Food are currently developing the SIGMAZAh (Geographical Information
System of Coastal Conditioning Areas) project (Sanz et al., 1997). The
scope of the project is to prepare a GIS, which will make appropriate
management ancl monitoring of the Coastal Regulated Zones by the
Administration possible, in order to protect and regulate anthropogenic
activity in some Spanish continental shelf marine areas of economic
and biological interest (SGPM, 1995).
These actions require that areas be specifically set out for marine reserves
(SGPM, 1999), artificial reefs, hulls sunk to make artificial reefs and
protection and production of molluscs (SGPM, 1996). To datc, there
are enough areas with the above mentioned characteristics (SGPM,
1995, 1996, 1999), but they are not managed and monitored in a
homogeneous way.
This GIS will provide the Administration with a tool providing the
environmental conditions ofgiven areas, their features, the degree to
which laws are enforced and the development of Sector Plans. To answer
these requests, the t,IS should incorporate not only marine environmental information, but also înformation on the coastal area (rivers, lithology, topography, etc.), the results of the studies carried out by the
Administration in the regulated marine areas and legislation concerning
them.
The project has been developed in three stages:
- resource analysis, assessing GIS needs and designing its structure;
- collecting and inputting information and implementing results in a
pilot area;
- developing the GIS on the Spanish continental shelf. The project is
currently in the third stage.
The conceptual structure of the SIGMAZAL project (fig. 1) was designed
following analysis and definition, together with the final user, of:
- objectives to be covered by the GIS;
- priorities in the clifferent fields;
- identification of the features which should be in the databases (DB).
This led us to define the necessary elements and coveragcs to describe
the marine environment, to determine the characteristics of attribute
tables, graphic features and the classes or values that the variables (or
fields) should have.
Identifying and defining the elements was quite complex. Final users
(the administration drawing up the law) did not consider every regulated zone as part of a larger universe, they had not uniformly defined
the information layers (not even on paper) and they usecl confusing
terminology (the same name for different elements).
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Introduction
The Instituto Espanol de Oceanograffia (IEO) and the General Secretary
ofMaritime Fishing (SGPM) from Ministry of Agriculture, Fishing and
Food are currently developing the SIGMAZAh (Geographical Information
System of Coastal Conditioning Areas) project (Sanz et al., 1997). The
scope of the project is to prepare a GIS, which will make appropriate
management ancl monitoring of the Coastal Regulated Zones by the
Administration possible, in order to protect and regulate anthropogenic
activity in some Spanish continental shelf marine areas of economic
and biological interest (SGPM, 1995).
These actions require that areas be specifically set out for marine reserves
(SGPM, 1999), artificial reefs, hulls sunk to make artificial reefs and
protection and production of molluscs (SGPM, 1996). To datc, there
are enough areas with the above mentioned characteristics (SGPM,
1995, 1996, 1999), but they are not managed and monitored in a
homogeneous way.
This GIS will provide the Administration with a tool providing the
environmental conditions ofgiven areas, their features, the degree to
which laws are enforced and the development of Sector Plans. To answer
these requests, the t,IS should incorporate not only marine environmental information, but also înformation on the coastal area (rivers, lithology, topography, etc.), the results of the studies carried out by the
Administration in the regulated marine areas and legislation concerning
them.
The project has been developed in three stages:
- resource analysis, assessing GIS needs and designing its structure;
- collecting and inputting information and implementing results in a
pilot area;
- developing the GIS on the Spanish continental shelf. The project is
currently in the third stage.
The conceptual structure of the SIGMAZAL project (fig. 1) was designed
following analysis and definition, together with the final user, of:
- objectives to be covered by the GIS;
- priorities in the clifferent fields;
- identification of the features which should be in the databases (DB).
This led us to define the necessary elements and coveragcs to describe
the marine environment, to determine the characteristics of attribute
tables, graphic features and the classes or values that the variables (or
fields) should have.
Identifying and defining the elements was quite complex. Final users
(the administration drawing up the law) did not consider every regulated zone as part of a larger universe, they had not uniformly defined
the information layers (not even on paper) and they usecl confusing
terminology (the same name for different elements).
295