Tim Stojanovic

Facts, Fictions, and Failures of Integrated Coastal Zone Management in Europe

Nearly 40 years on since its first tentative steps in North America, this article considers whether Integrated Zone Coastal Management (ICZM) in Europe has grown to maturity as a form of governance. The article summarizes the findings of recent research concerning the levels of implementation of coastal management in Europe, with particular reference to the UK experience. A research framework is used to identify the different motivations behind the social actor groups involved in coastal management. The application of this framework reveals four major findings about gaps in implementation: (1) the complexity of responsibilities at the coast continues to prevent agencies from taking a “joined-up” approach; (2) a policy vacuum is constraining implementation from national to local scales; (3) informational obstacles are significant in preventing co-ordination between science and policymakers, and between different sectors; (4) a democratic deficit is preventing implementation in the working practices of coastal stakeholders, with little opportunity in decision making for public comment or local accountability, especially offshore. The article also explores different conceptualizations of the role of coastal management and planning held across Europe, providing an analysis using the Strategic Management literature and the experience of the EU Demonstration Programme on Integrated Coastal Zone Management (1996–1999). Recent arrangements, with the availability of priming funds from the European Commission and emphasis on “pilot” and “demonstration” methods, have tended to encourage a project-based approach to ICZM that may fail to realize long-term objectives. The article seeks to present an analysis of the behaviors of scientists, academics, policymakers, and practitioners, and will be of interest to all those seeking to establish ICZM within the wider system of governance, as supported by the Commission of the European Community (2000) Communication on ICZM (COM 547). Some technical solutions are also offered from the UK experience that will be of use to coastal project officers working at national and regional levels.

The “social” aspect of social-ecological systems: a critique of analytical frameworks and findings from a multisite study of coastal sustainability

The work described here was partly funded by the European Commission’s FP6 contract 036992.

To ontologise or not to ontologise: An information model for a geospatial knowledge infrastructure

A geospatial knowledge infrastructure consists of a set of interoperable components, including software, information, hardware, procedures and standards, that work together to support advanced discovery and creation of geoscientific resources, including publications, data sets and web services. The focus of the work presented is the development of such an infrastructure for resource discovery. Advanced resource discovery is intended to support scientists in finding resources that meet their needs, and focuses on representing the semantic details of the scientific resources, including the detailed aspects of the science that led to the resource being created. This paper describes an information model for a geospatial knowledge infrastructure that uses ontologies to represent these semantic details, including knowledge about domain concepts, the scientific elements of the resource (analysis methods, theories and scientific processes) and web services. This semantic information can be used to enable more intelligent search over scientific resources, and to support new ways to infer and visualise scientific knowledge. The work describes the requirements for semantic support of a knowledge infrastructure, and analyses the different options for information storage based on the twin goals of semantic richness and syntactic interoperability to allow communication between different infrastructures. Such interoperability is achieved by the use of open standards, and the architecture of the knowledge infrastructure adopts such standards, particularly from the geospatial community. The paper then describes an information model that uses a range of different types of ontologies, explaining those ontologies and their content. The information model was successfully implemented in a working geospatial knowledge infrastructure, but the evaluation identified some issues in creating the ontologies.

The Spatial Development Basis of Marine Spatial Planning in the United Kingdom

The advent of marine spatial planning in the United Kingdom (UK) is taking place on a foundation of extensive and long-standing management practice, largely sectorally based, in one of the most intensively used sea areas in the world. The spatial development context of planning offshore and at the coast is considered, followed by a discussion of the fundamental nature of human activities and associated marine space, followed by a discussion of the implications for current and future planning, with a primary focus on the use of spatial allocation in shipping and port activity, military uses, mineral and energy exploitation, fisheries and fish farming, waste disposal, leisure industries and conservation. Due account is taken of regional developments. Finally, there is an evaluation of the major management issues arising from recently enacted marine legislation in the UK and Scotland. Account is also taken of related European Union and devolved administrations’ roles, and overall implications for the development and management of the coast.

eScience for Sea Science: A Semantic Scientific Knowledge Infrastructure for Marine Scientists

The COastal and Marine Perception Application for Scientific Scholarship (COMPASS) is a knowledge infrastructure that supports enhanced discovery of scientific resources, including publications, data sets and web services. It provides users with the ability to discover resources on the basis of domain knowledge using ontologies, and scientific knowledge, including the scientific models, theories and methods that were used to conduct the research described by the resource. The application includes an architecture that adopts standards from the geospatial information community to ensure interoperability between repositories and allow interaction with content from digital libraries. The architecture shows how ontologies can be used as a registry for an interoperable infrastructure. A prototype was successfully implemented and evaluated with users, finding enthusiasm and support for the approach, with some suggestions for improvements of the prototype implementation.

Finding Science with Science: Evaluating a Domain and Scientific Ontology User Interface for the Discovery of Scientific Resources

Current approaches to the discovery of scientific resources (publications, data sets and web services) are dominated by keyword search. These approaches do not allow scientists to search on the deeper semantics of scientific resources, or to discover resources on the basis of the scientific approaches taken. This article evaluates a user interface that allows users to discover scientific resources through structured knowledge in the form of ontologies describing the domain and the scientific knowledge inherent within the scientific resource, and also through informal user tags. These combined capabilities provide scientists with new and powerful options for resource discovery. A qualitative user evaluation explored how scientists felt about the approach for resource discovery in the context of their scientific work. The study showed that marine scientists were enthusiastic about the capabilities of such an approach and appreciated the ability to browse the visual structure of the knowledge and query on scientific method but, overall, preferred the use of tags over ontologies. The exploratory nature of the user study was used to identify future directions for such improvements.

Socio-economic Impacts—Coastal Management and Governance

Climate change will have important impacts on the North Sea coastal zones. Major threats include sea-level rise and the associated increase in flood risk, coastal erosion and wetland loss, and hazards arising from more frequent storm surges. The North Sea countries—Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK—have developed strategies to deal with these threats. This chapter provides a short introduction to the present adaptation strategies and highlights differences and similarities between them. All the North Sea countries face dilemmas in the implementation of their adaptation strategies. Uncertainty about the extent and timing of climate-driven impacts is a major underlying cause. In view of this, adaptation plans focus on no-regret measures. The most considered measures in the North Sea countries are spatial planning in the coastal zone (set-back lines), wetland restoration, coastal nourishment and reinforcement of existing protection structures. The difficulty of identifying the climate-driven component of observed change in the coastal zone is a critical obstacle to obtaining a widely shared understanding of the urgency of adaptation. A better coordinated and more consistent approach to marine monitoring is crucial for informing policy and the general public and for developing the adaptive capacity of institutions and wider society. A dedicated coastal observation network is not yet in place in the North Sea region.

Responding to Coastal Issues in the United Kingdom: Managing Information and Collaborating through Partnerships

The focus of this article is on voluntary (non-statutory) initiatives for integrated coastal management (ICM) in the United Kingdom (U.K.) that undertake planning and management for 50–300 km stretches of coast or discrete ecosystems such as estuaries. They are a partnership of organisations and interest groups, rather than a single organisation. They form one kind of response to coastal issues alongside government licensing and regulation, and community-based initiatives, each operating at a variety of scales. They represent a relatively new type of approach to dealing with coastal issues and managing coastal information. In contrast to sectoral management, focused on regulatory and technical solutions, they take a partnership approach to bring together public, private, and voluntary

Franklin, A., and P. Blyton, eds. Researching Sustainability: A Guide to Social Science Methods, Practice and Engagement.

Researching Sustainability provides a much-needed text for a growing global community interested in researching, evaluating, and teaching sustainability. The publication stems from a collaboration within the BRASS (Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society) group, an ESRC center at Cardiff University. The work reflects the disciplinary expertise and interest among that group, which is of considerable breadth—though regrettably does not cross the natural= social science divide. Key aims of the text are to (1) identify best practice, (2) introduce research on sustainability using social science methods, and (3) link research with real-world solutions (focusing on real examples of social science research into sustainability issues). The text can be located as a contribution to the longer term project of sustainability science. The editors offer a pragmatic overview of sustainable development, which avoids extended discussion of the contested definitions of the subject. Rather, they stress located perspectives on sustainable development held by different researchers. Two key themes of the text are the imperative for impartial research, and the desire to ‘‘make a difference’’ (p. 9). Additionally, the interdisciplinary nature of sustainability research is emphasized as a defining characteristic. The text also acknowledges the challenges that this creates in terms of integrating methodological approaches. In our review of the text, we present an analysis of the chapters in the book from the perspective of authors who presently teach undergraduate and postgraduate sustainability degrees, as well as actively do research in the field. This leads us to consider the overall comprehensiveness and sufficiency of the chapters, as well as a critically reviewing their content and assumptions. The text also paints diverse visions of the way forward for the field. The positions held by the chapter authors and editors range from radical questioning of the dominant scientific paradigm, to concerted reform of disciplinary science and utilization of established research methods. In the conclusion, we evaluate the implications of these positions for our different approaches to research in sustainable development (SD), and set out what we find most convincing about the varied arguments. An introductory chapter by Peattie provides a personal overview of research in sustainability. This is not simply a standard ‘‘methods’’ book. Peattie recounts some of common challenges facing academics of defining, delivering and disseminating research in this field. These include the epistemological assumptions that must be engaged and reformed, the methodological decisions that must be made and Society and Natural Resources, 26:860–864 Copyright # 2013 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0894-1920 print=1521-0723 online DOI: 10.1080/08941920.2012.744643

The Development of Coastal Information Systems: The Role of Networks in Bringing Spatial Analysis into Planning and Management

Developers and users of GIS face many challenges in producing successful IT tools. This chapter focuses on the domain of applied technology, and the issue of how to successfully transfer information to users in the coastal zone, where there are complex marine and terrestrial jurisdictions and responsibilities. The worldwide increase in the volume of spatial and environmental data has led governments and organisations to consider the approach of information management. The chapter reports the findings of research in the UK, which has detailed problems such as: “information overload”; commercial, political and environmental sensitivity of data, lack of information policy or good data handling practices; and the difficulties and failures in establishing distributed, inter-organisational information systems.