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Plans for the Coastal Zone
taken in the light of the best possible interpretation of the available information.
In a “best practice” environment shoreline management activity should be
focused on Shoreline Planning rather than Shoreline Plans. Plans are static,
authoritarian, imposing documents that imply discrete ownership of the content and
message. They tend to lend themselves to becoming “shelf-ware”. By contrast
planning is a process! It implies a hands-on, dynamic and responsive activity with
shared responsibility.
The modern “best practice” tool that gives life to this change of emphasis is the
(computer-based) Geographic Information System. In a GIS, data can be integrated,
analysed and used for effective modelling. GIS, by virtue of its flexibility and dynamic
functionality enables information and data sources to be kept up to date very efficiently.
New information such as datasets on environmental, socio-economic or topographic
aspects can be incorporated and integrated effectively. New users and new applications
can be integrated into existing systems with relative ease, allowing expansion and
inclusiveness rather than status quo and exclusivity. These must be the characteristics
of a successful and effective operational environment for coastal zone agencies.
The National Geospatial Data Framework and the Coastal Zone
This concept was initially proposed by Ordnance Survey in the Autumn of 1995 under
the title of the National Geospatial Database. At that time there was a “mind’s eye
visualisation” of a “virtual database” of (principally) publicly gathered, owned or
administered geospatial datasets. It was envisaged that if these data could be made
more easily available and accessible through a range of protocols and data exchange
standards and mechanisms, this would encourage wider and more effective use of the
data. The benefits would be derived from offering a better return on the original
investment in data acquisition, through more extensive use. NGD was also seen as
offering the potential for improved correlation, integration and analysis of (often
disparate) data. This would promote better informed decision processes and possibly
“value added” applications, and income for the data “contributor! Obviously the
Internet and World Wide Web were seen as important mechanisms for the
identification, procurement and supply of these data for potential “value adding” and
end users.
In the ensuing eighteen months, and following a number of fruitful and
constructive meetings, seminars and dialogues among the UK geospatial community,
the concept of a “virtual NGD” has been refocused. The short-medium term objectives
have evolved toward the establishment of a National Geospatial Data Framework
(NGDF). This will embrace, inter alia, the standards, data indices, metadata catalogues
and other relevant protocols and infrastructures necessary to facilitate and encourage
data exchange and use. This focus is intended to encourage those bodies who have data
to offer it to a wider user community (if appropriate on a commercial basis). Those who
are “Value Adding” organisations wishing to combine and integrate data for onward
distribution, and those organisations who are end users seeking to exploit such data
combinations for practical applications, will have a clear and unambiguous technical
environment in which to operate and “trade” their data and their skills.
The NGDF concept offers great potential for the coastal zone community
Plans for the Coastal Zone
taken in the light of the best possible interpretation of the available information.
In a “best practice” environment shoreline management activity should be
focused on Shoreline Planning rather than Shoreline Plans. Plans are static,
authoritarian, imposing documents that imply discrete ownership of the content and
message. They tend to lend themselves to becoming “shelf-ware”. By contrast
planning is a process! It implies a hands-on, dynamic and responsive activity with
shared responsibility.
The modern “best practice” tool that gives life to this change of emphasis is the
(computer-based) Geographic Information System. In a GIS, data can be integrated,
analysed and used for effective modelling. GIS, by virtue of its flexibility and dynamic
functionality enables information and data sources to be kept up to date very efficiently.
New information such as datasets on environmental, socio-economic or topographic
aspects can be incorporated and integrated effectively. New users and new applications
can be integrated into existing systems with relative ease, allowing expansion and
inclusiveness rather than status quo and exclusivity. These must be the characteristics
of a successful and effective operational environment for coastal zone agencies.
The National Geospatial Data Framework and the Coastal Zone
This concept was initially proposed by Ordnance Survey in the Autumn of 1995 under
the title of the National Geospatial Database. At that time there was a “mind’s eye
visualisation” of a “virtual database” of (principally) publicly gathered, owned or
administered geospatial datasets. It was envisaged that if these data could be made
more easily available and accessible through a range of protocols and data exchange
standards and mechanisms, this would encourage wider and more effective use of the
data. The benefits would be derived from offering a better return on the original
investment in data acquisition, through more extensive use. NGD was also seen as
offering the potential for improved correlation, integration and analysis of (often
disparate) data. This would promote better informed decision processes and possibly
“value added” applications, and income for the data “contributor! Obviously the
Internet and World Wide Web were seen as important mechanisms for the
identification, procurement and supply of these data for potential “value adding” and
end users.
In the ensuing eighteen months, and following a number of fruitful and
constructive meetings, seminars and dialogues among the UK geospatial community,
the concept of a “virtual NGD” has been refocused. The short-medium term objectives
have evolved toward the establishment of a National Geospatial Data Framework
(NGDF). This will embrace, inter alia, the standards, data indices, metadata catalogues
and other relevant protocols and infrastructures necessary to facilitate and encourage
data exchange and use. This focus is intended to encourage those bodies who have data
to offer it to a wider user community (if appropriate on a commercial basis). Those who
are “Value Adding” organisations wishing to combine and integrate data for onward
distribution, and those organisations who are end users seeking to exploit such data
combinations for practical applications, will have a clear and unambiguous technical
environment in which to operate and “trade” their data and their skills.
The NGDF concept offers great potential for the coastal zone community