Chapter 10
The Concept of Marine Landscapes Within
the French Information System on Nature
and Landscapes (SINP)
Amelia Curd and Alain Pibot
Abstract Several concepts revolve around the term “marine landscapes”: all of them
are nourished by aggregating data from multiple sources and disciplines. The SINP
(Système d’Information sur la Nature et les Paysages) is the French marine biodiversity and landscape building block in the global marine data infrastructure pyramid.
Within this information system marine landscapes have been apprehended in both a
pictorial and an ecological manner, therefore the usages of the SINP depend on the
adopted definition. Through examples we argue that by increasing the availability of
the massive volumes of cross-domain data necessary for apprehending landscapes,
regardless of the chosen definition, the SINP can play a role in defining and refining
our understanding of marine landscapes.
Keywords Biodiversity · Informatics · Human perception · Cross-domain
10.1 Introduction
It is now widely accepted that, in order to thoroughly understand how environmental features structure potentially large ecological systems, data sets from multiple
countries and disciplines need to be made interpretable and pooled. Biodiversity
and ecosystem monitoring require data to be organized in a global, integrated infrastructure, such as provided by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and
Ocean Biogeographic Information System (Leadley et al. 2010). Data transmission
to these global marine data infrastructures has historically occurred directly from
certain data providers, however increasingly countries are structuring their marine
A. Curd ()
IFREMER, BP 70, 29280 Plouzané, France
e-mail: Amelia.curd@ifremer.fr
A. Pibot
Agence des aires marines protégées, 16 quai de la douane, CS 42932,
Brest Cedex 02, France
e-mail: Alain.pibot@aires-marines.fr
O. Musard et al. (eds.), Underwater Seascapes, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-03440-9_10,
153
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
The Concept of Marine Landscapes Within
the French Information System on Nature
and Landscapes (SINP)
Amelia Curd and Alain Pibot
Abstract Several concepts revolve around the term “marine landscapes”: all of them
are nourished by aggregating data from multiple sources and disciplines. The SINP
(Système d’Information sur la Nature et les Paysages) is the French marine biodiversity and landscape building block in the global marine data infrastructure pyramid.
Within this information system marine landscapes have been apprehended in both a
pictorial and an ecological manner, therefore the usages of the SINP depend on the
adopted definition. Through examples we argue that by increasing the availability of
the massive volumes of cross-domain data necessary for apprehending landscapes,
regardless of the chosen definition, the SINP can play a role in defining and refining
our understanding of marine landscapes.
Keywords Biodiversity · Informatics · Human perception · Cross-domain
10.1 Introduction
It is now widely accepted that, in order to thoroughly understand how environmental features structure potentially large ecological systems, data sets from multiple
countries and disciplines need to be made interpretable and pooled. Biodiversity
and ecosystem monitoring require data to be organized in a global, integrated infrastructure, such as provided by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and
Ocean Biogeographic Information System (Leadley et al. 2010). Data transmission
to these global marine data infrastructures has historically occurred directly from
certain data providers, however increasingly countries are structuring their marine
A. Curd ()
IFREMER, BP 70, 29280 Plouzané, France
e-mail: Amelia.curd@ifremer.fr
A. Pibot
Agence des aires marines protégées, 16 quai de la douane, CS 42932,
Brest Cedex 02, France
e-mail: Alain.pibot@aires-marines.fr
O. Musard et al. (eds.), Underwater Seascapes, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-03440-9_10,
153
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014