CoastGIS’99: geomatics and coastal environment
The Directory forms part of the European Directory of Marine Environmental Data (EDMED) which is a collaborative venture within the
EU MAST programme and is available as a searchable directory on the
Internet at http://www.pol.ac.uk/bodc/edmed.
Coastal and Regional Seas Directories
The Coastal Directories Project began as a result of a suggestion made
by UK representatives at the second meeting of the North Sea Task
Force in 1989. They felt that information on coastal habitats and
species of conservation importance should be included in the Quality
Status Report (QSR) then being produced. The principal aim was to
produce a comprehensive description of the North Sea coastal margin
of the UK, including its habitats, species and human activities.
This was initially published as The Directory of the North Seas Coastal
Margin and evolved into 16 volumes, covering 1 7 regions. These collate
existing information on the United Kingdom and Isle of Man coastal
zone to provide national and regional overviews of the natural resources
and human activities. A key feature of the Directories is the system of
indexes pointing to more detailed sources of information.
One ol the key lessons learnt from the Coastal Directories approach has
been that adopting a participatory approach in the data gathering
process is as relevant and important at the national level as it is at more
local scales. Participation promotes better understanding and acceptance
of management choices: a vital element in achieving greater integration
of coastal management.
As the publication cycle drew to a close, the Project steering group commissioned a study to look at the options for further development of the
Project’s work. They chose to develop the Directories into a software
application. Funding was secured from the United Kingdom Offshore
Operators Association (UKOOA) to develop the first phase of the Coastal
Directories Electronic Platform (CDEP). This software provides a mapbased interface with the coastal directories through which dot maps,
contextual data, and the full text of the directories can be accessed.
The Land Ocean Interaction Study
The Land Ocean Interaction Study (LOIS) is an eight year, £30 m research
project funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and
involves over 300 scientists. As such it is the largest NERC fundecl
research programme. It has, consequently, produced vast amounts of
commercially available data relating to each of the LOIS topic areas:
BIOTA (the biological component), Shelf Edge Study (SES, the marine
component), Land Ocean Evolution Perspective Study (LOEPS, the geological component) and Rivers, Atmosphere and Coasts Study (RACS).
Further details can be found at http://www.pml.ac.uk/lois/index.html.
The temporal component of data is equally as important as the geographical component; this is especially true in the coastal zone. LOIS
has attempted to convey this with its time series data consisting of
58
The Directory forms part of the European Directory of Marine Environmental Data (EDMED) which is a collaborative venture within the
EU MAST programme and is available as a searchable directory on the
Internet at http://www.pol.ac.uk/bodc/edmed.
Coastal and Regional Seas Directories
The Coastal Directories Project began as a result of a suggestion made
by UK representatives at the second meeting of the North Sea Task
Force in 1989. They felt that information on coastal habitats and
species of conservation importance should be included in the Quality
Status Report (QSR) then being produced. The principal aim was to
produce a comprehensive description of the North Sea coastal margin
of the UK, including its habitats, species and human activities.
This was initially published as The Directory of the North Seas Coastal
Margin and evolved into 16 volumes, covering 1 7 regions. These collate
existing information on the United Kingdom and Isle of Man coastal
zone to provide national and regional overviews of the natural resources
and human activities. A key feature of the Directories is the system of
indexes pointing to more detailed sources of information.
One ol the key lessons learnt from the Coastal Directories approach has
been that adopting a participatory approach in the data gathering
process is as relevant and important at the national level as it is at more
local scales. Participation promotes better understanding and acceptance
of management choices: a vital element in achieving greater integration
of coastal management.
As the publication cycle drew to a close, the Project steering group commissioned a study to look at the options for further development of the
Project’s work. They chose to develop the Directories into a software
application. Funding was secured from the United Kingdom Offshore
Operators Association (UKOOA) to develop the first phase of the Coastal
Directories Electronic Platform (CDEP). This software provides a mapbased interface with the coastal directories through which dot maps,
contextual data, and the full text of the directories can be accessed.
The Land Ocean Interaction Study
The Land Ocean Interaction Study (LOIS) is an eight year, £30 m research
project funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and
involves over 300 scientists. As such it is the largest NERC fundecl
research programme. It has, consequently, produced vast amounts of
commercially available data relating to each of the LOIS topic areas:
BIOTA (the biological component), Shelf Edge Study (SES, the marine
component), Land Ocean Evolution Perspective Study (LOEPS, the geological component) and Rivers, Atmosphere and Coasts Study (RACS).
Further details can be found at http://www.pml.ac.uk/lois/index.html.
The temporal component of data is equally as important as the geographical component; this is especially true in the coastal zone. LOIS
has attempted to convey this with its time series data consisting of
58