CoastGIS'99: geomatics and coastal environment
Research and technology
In the area of technology, we still need to find data structures that can
really address the 3D and 4D environment. We really need to push the
research in that area, so that we can start looking at the water column,
and at various temporal aspects of the coast such as tides and water
movements. We can see that several system vendors are starting to
respond to such needs: for example, the overall theme of the last ESRI
user conference was “Ocean GIS”, and the company gave the clear message that it is paying close attention to the coastal and ocean regions
as an important marketing area. Hopefully, their interest (as well that
of other vendors) will lead us to some different data structures and software to model this offshore area.
Then, there is the whole question of numerical modelling of the environment, rivers and streams and hydrology, an approach which is not
yet very well married with GIS. Progress in this area has been very
slow over the last 15 years. There will hopefully be a conference,
coming up next year, on this theme of integrating environmental
modelling with GIS.
Legal issues
As far as legal applications are concerned, a number of papers presented
here have addressed the legal implications of, and frameworks for,
applying GIS to the coastal zone. We are just covering some of the issues
involved, and we have a long way to go. Our politicians, policy makers
and lawyers are hardly paying any attention to such matters at present,
and this is disturbing. In the United States, a lot of new legislation is
being enacted without really looking at the impact of technology in
the areas covered by these laws. We still have a lot of research, and also
lobbying, to do in this area.
Navigation
Because hydrographers have been charged with mapping for safe navigation for so many years, many of our primary data sets (bathymetry,
and also mapping of shorelines and other ocean features) come from this
community. The hydrographic profession is starting to organize internationally, their products are becoming much more standardised, and
they are starting to look at the overlap between access to data and use
of these data in GIS and other applications. But members of the hydrographic community also tend to have a bias towards the shore, which
suggests they are reluctant to pay attention to anything that doesn’t
impact directly on information needs for navigation. Thus, while they
may collect wide-ranging data in the field, when it comes to creating
their archives and databases, they are liable to throw away any bathymetric data that are not seen as relevant to their immediate needs. If
the hydrographer is looking for shoals, for example, or other places
that someone run aground, data relating to canyons or to a deep area
of sea may often be thrown away; or, in a case of a shoreline, data update
312
Research and technology
In the area of technology, we still need to find data structures that can
really address the 3D and 4D environment. We really need to push the
research in that area, so that we can start looking at the water column,
and at various temporal aspects of the coast such as tides and water
movements. We can see that several system vendors are starting to
respond to such needs: for example, the overall theme of the last ESRI
user conference was “Ocean GIS”, and the company gave the clear message that it is paying close attention to the coastal and ocean regions
as an important marketing area. Hopefully, their interest (as well that
of other vendors) will lead us to some different data structures and software to model this offshore area.
Then, there is the whole question of numerical modelling of the environment, rivers and streams and hydrology, an approach which is not
yet very well married with GIS. Progress in this area has been very
slow over the last 15 years. There will hopefully be a conference,
coming up next year, on this theme of integrating environmental
modelling with GIS.
Legal issues
As far as legal applications are concerned, a number of papers presented
here have addressed the legal implications of, and frameworks for,
applying GIS to the coastal zone. We are just covering some of the issues
involved, and we have a long way to go. Our politicians, policy makers
and lawyers are hardly paying any attention to such matters at present,
and this is disturbing. In the United States, a lot of new legislation is
being enacted without really looking at the impact of technology in
the areas covered by these laws. We still have a lot of research, and also
lobbying, to do in this area.
Navigation
Because hydrographers have been charged with mapping for safe navigation for so many years, many of our primary data sets (bathymetry,
and also mapping of shorelines and other ocean features) come from this
community. The hydrographic profession is starting to organize internationally, their products are becoming much more standardised, and
they are starting to look at the overlap between access to data and use
of these data in GIS and other applications. But members of the hydrographic community also tend to have a bias towards the shore, which
suggests they are reluctant to pay attention to anything that doesn’t
impact directly on information needs for navigation. Thus, while they
may collect wide-ranging data in the field, when it comes to creating
their archives and databases, they are liable to throw away any bathymetric data that are not seen as relevant to their immediate needs. If
the hydrographer is looking for shoals, for example, or other places
that someone run aground, data relating to canyons or to a deep area
of sea may often be thrown away; or, in a case of a shoreline, data update
312