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C.I.S. Pater
coastal planning and management documents by the Department of the Environment
(DoE, 1996) and the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (MAFF, 1995). The
ideal conditions were created for a review of the UK inshore charting resource, but by
failing to invest in this field the effective use of GIS in the preparation and
development of Shoreline Management Plans has been seriously hampered. This
compounds other pre-existing concerns surrounding GIS such as the cost of hardware,
software and data, the usability of an established system and concerning the principle
of ultra vires, the jurisdiction of its use. The institutional and technical problems
identified by Jones (1995) and Collier et al. (1995) remain current and provide an
indication as to why in 1997, coastal and marine GIS in the UK seems to have
remained at the project stage of development. For an example of how spatial analysis
can progress to a working system, the Rijkswaterstaat in The Netherlands provides a
demonstration of the effectiveness of an integrated cartographic resource, in terms of
both hard copy and digital formats (Damoiseaux, 1995). However, the Dutch are at a
considerable financial advantage for the implementation of such a charting record with
a coastline only 350 km long, compared to the UK coastline of 15,000 km.
Conclusions
For collating the past from the chart record, the term ‘past’ must be interpreted as
within the last two decades following the publication of chart editions to the same data
standards. Concerning the terrain modelling of present conditions through spatial
analysis, research is restricted to specific areas where a viable data resource exists.
The Wash illustrates, at a local scale, how currently available intertidal and subtidal
data (port soundings and Environment Agency profiles) allows quantitative estimation
over the whole embayment, but quantitative analysis is possible only in routinely
surveyed areas such as the ‘Approaches to Boston’. The relevance of this small scale
of analysis must also be considered in terms of the dynamics of that one location and in
extrapolating conditions to the wider littoral sub-cell and cell. This also applies to the
periodicity of the survey strategy and a ‘use by’ date caveat is needed for the relevance
of the data. The composition of survey material within charts also requires a greater
deal of co-ordination between concurrent intertidal and subtidal monitoring
programmes. The stimulus for integrating current strategies could be the production of
a new topographic digital chart to provide a vector template on which a fully
functioning, operational level GIS could be constructed. Until this occurs, GIS
represents an effective means to display the spatial and temporal survey mosaic of the
UK coastal waters. This is only a part of the full contribution that this technology can
make, but it demonstrates the increasing difficulty in collating the past and the present
and provides a warning for future analysis.
Acknowledgements
The supply of charts (published and unpublished) has been kindly dealt with by the
staff of the Hydrographic Office Data Centre, Taunton. The intertidal survey data has
C.I.S. Pater
coastal planning and management documents by the Department of the Environment
(DoE, 1996) and the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (MAFF, 1995). The
ideal conditions were created for a review of the UK inshore charting resource, but by
failing to invest in this field the effective use of GIS in the preparation and
development of Shoreline Management Plans has been seriously hampered. This
compounds other pre-existing concerns surrounding GIS such as the cost of hardware,
software and data, the usability of an established system and concerning the principle
of ultra vires, the jurisdiction of its use. The institutional and technical problems
identified by Jones (1995) and Collier et al. (1995) remain current and provide an
indication as to why in 1997, coastal and marine GIS in the UK seems to have
remained at the project stage of development. For an example of how spatial analysis
can progress to a working system, the Rijkswaterstaat in The Netherlands provides a
demonstration of the effectiveness of an integrated cartographic resource, in terms of
both hard copy and digital formats (Damoiseaux, 1995). However, the Dutch are at a
considerable financial advantage for the implementation of such a charting record with
a coastline only 350 km long, compared to the UK coastline of 15,000 km.
Conclusions
For collating the past from the chart record, the term ‘past’ must be interpreted as
within the last two decades following the publication of chart editions to the same data
standards. Concerning the terrain modelling of present conditions through spatial
analysis, research is restricted to specific areas where a viable data resource exists.
The Wash illustrates, at a local scale, how currently available intertidal and subtidal
data (port soundings and Environment Agency profiles) allows quantitative estimation
over the whole embayment, but quantitative analysis is possible only in routinely
surveyed areas such as the ‘Approaches to Boston’. The relevance of this small scale
of analysis must also be considered in terms of the dynamics of that one location and in
extrapolating conditions to the wider littoral sub-cell and cell. This also applies to the
periodicity of the survey strategy and a ‘use by’ date caveat is needed for the relevance
of the data. The composition of survey material within charts also requires a greater
deal of co-ordination between concurrent intertidal and subtidal monitoring
programmes. The stimulus for integrating current strategies could be the production of
a new topographic digital chart to provide a vector template on which a fully
functioning, operational level GIS could be constructed. Until this occurs, GIS
represents an effective means to display the spatial and temporal survey mosaic of the
UK coastal waters. This is only a part of the full contribution that this technology can
make, but it demonstrates the increasing difficulty in collating the past and the present
and provides a warning for future analysis.
Acknowledgements
The supply of charts (published and unpublished) has been kindly dealt with by the
staff of the Hydrographic Office Data Centre, Taunton. The intertidal survey data has