Spatial data and its importance for the implementation

Spatial data and its importance for the implementation of UNEP MAP ICZM Protocol for the Mediterranean Gonzalo C. Malvárez, Emilia G. Pintado, Fátima Navas & Alessandro Giordano

Journal of Coastal Conservation Planning and Management ISSN 1400-0350 J Coast Conserv DOI 10.1007/s11852-015-0372-1

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Author's personal copy J Coast Conserv DOI 10.1007/s11852-015-0372-1

Spatial data and its importance for the implementation of UNEP MAP ICZM Protocol for the Mediterranean Gonzalo C. Malvárez & Emilia G. Pintado & Fátima Navas & Alessandro Giordano

Received: 22 July 2014 / Revised: 30 December 2014 / Accepted: 5 January 2015 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Abstract The Barcelona Convention, and its instrument the Protocol for Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM), entered into force in 2011 with the goal of defining a set of common principles to achieve sustainable development of the coast along Mediterranean countries. Among other challenges derived from the implementation in the Member States is the need of a framework based on a governance platform to support countries in this process. In this context in 2010 the European Commission Framework Programme 7 for research funded a significant project called PEGASO, whose main goal was to construct such ICZM Governance Platform as a bridge between scientist and end-user communities. One of key elements of the Platform was the development of a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) and a set of sustainability assessment tools required for making multi-scale integrated assessments in the coastal zone. The SDI was based in a network of local geonodes in order to deliver a Mediterranean and Black Sea harmonised sets of data accessible through a dedicated webbased Geoportal. This paper describes the development of the infrastructure, the process of integrating data from diverse formats and nature, and the challenged faced when trying to put in practice a common model to manage complex regions such as the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Keywords SDI . PEGASO . Geonodes . Spatial data . Mediterranean . Black Sea . Geoportal . ICZM Introduction Since first coastal management approaches arose in the early 60s with the US Coastal Law, many and different G. C. Malvárez (*) : E. G. Pintado : F. Navas : A. Giordano University Pablo de Olavide of Seville, Ctra. de Utrera Km.1, 41013 Seville, Spain e-mail: [email protected]

Governments, International organisations and countries have carried out important efforts to achieve the desirable sustainable and integrated coastal management. Although coastal areas constitute complex and vulnerable systems, the increase in number of activities, rights and interests during the past 30 years combined with an significant increase of people living within the first 30 km of the coastal zone have contributed to convert the coastal management in a central political issue in almost any country. An intense and non-sustainable exploitation of natural resources has caused pressures and impacts on coastal ecosystems, leading to biodiversity loss, habitats destruction, threatened of species, pollution, and conflicts between potential uses and users. Further, coastal zones have proved to be the most vulnerable areas to climate change and natural hazards (flooding, erosion, sea level rise as well as extreme weather events) affecting coastal communities and natural resources linked to coastal systems. In recent years, these issues have led to a variety of initiatives to better achieve a sustainable development and to minimise risk and vulnerability of coastal systems. However, despite its overwhelming importance to society and the efforts that have been carried out during the last decades, the coastal zone remains a geographical area difficult to manage. This is due to inherent factors such as the spatial and temporal scales in which processes occur (tidal regimes, waves and wind climate variability) that require different approaches at variables scales. Further, coastal systems are characterise for being in the interface of the land and the sea which results on the overlapping of disciplines such as physical geography, oceanography and hydrography that need to be combine in any approach (from offshore, near shore, shoreline, inshore data information). In addition to that, external issues such as the fact that coastal areas are often governed by a complex array of legislative and institutional arrangements from global to local scales (RAMSAR, Mediterranean protocol, regional, national and local regulations and policies) need to be

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considered in any holistic approach. On top of that, coastal dependant activities and natural resources are commonly managed from a sectorial perspective, often driven by reactive initiatives, with legislation or policies created when the need arises and specific to only one area of interest (fisheries, environment, agriculture, marine and terrestrial transport, urban and water planning are not integrated in a common legislative framework). Despite of the efforts made by Governments and coastal practitioners, these traditional sectorial management strategies have proved inadequate to deal with the complexity of such hybrid human-environmental interactions that characterise coastal systems. For the Mediterranean, the Protocol on Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) from the UNEP MAP Barcelona Convention, signed in Madrid in 2008, was the starting point for a common policy in coastal management (the ICZM Protocol) and has become the core document to guide an integrated management of the Coastal Zone for the Mediterranean countries based on the principles of sustainable development. Furthermore, after the adoption in 2008 of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), aiming to protect the marine environment through the holistic Ecosystem Approach (EA), the Member States are keen to develop and implement cost-effective measures to achieve and/or maintain “Good Environmental Status” (GEnS) which at the end requires a large amount of data to be appropriately managed. In parallel to the increase in ICZM initiatives the number of tools and methods to assess the status of the coast, and the marine environments, have increased since the coastal zone is recognised as a complex system whose management needs to involve various methodologies and stages to achieve results based on sharing knowledge and expertise between scientists, authorities and stakeholders (Malvárez et al. 2013). In this sense, the need of spatial data and information has grown quickly in line with the corresponding development of new technologies, such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS), remote sensing images, sensors, etc. (Phillips et al. 1999) However, despite the fact that key organizations hold a vast amount of environmental and socio-economic data in their databases, sometimes the information is not always readily accessible, others it’s not in an appropriate format and most of the times is has been produced twice by different organisations.. The result is a fragmented vision of the coastal environment at local level or across different sectors, and further the existence of geographical areas without standardized information. This inevitably leads to inefficiencies and duplication of effort, and thus it is evident that countries can benefit both economically and environmentally from a better management of their data (GSDI 2004). However, the capacity to organize, harmonize and use spatial data in a suitable way still remains an increasingly important challenge, and a major defiance for the government organizations of the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions, as well as other regional and private organizations.

One of the most common tendencies, mainly driven by the INPIRE Directive has been the conceptual development of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI). Currently, many countries have developed, or are currently developing, local geonodes linked to open data catalogues to store and organise their data, geoportals and spatial data viewers to visualise and enhance access to the information. In this sense, the development of thematic SDI has become prevalent among official Institutions and government as the strategy to achieve this goal. The main reason is that due to its design and technology SDIs allow to store spatial data information, their attributes, and their related documentation (metadata) offering a means to discover, visualize, and evaluate related coastal and any other spatial data information. Thematic SDIs reinforce the need for cohesive and decisive management and administration strategy for coastal zones (Strain et al. 2006). Furthermore, SDIs facilitate access to the data themselves (some information can be downloaded and visualised in other viewers as they follow common standards of interoperability), providing a valuable tool for governments, companies and citizens to easily find, understand and re-use data and information in coastal management and decision making processes. In this article the initiative carried out by PEGASO FP7 project in the development of a thematic SDI focussed in the implementation of the ICZM process is presented. The project achieved its goals of a shared-construction of an SDI supported by an on-line platform and with the collaboration of key institutions in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and was supported by meaningful Study Cases. Further, this paper demonstrates the role that spatial data infrastructures have in the support and implementation of ICZM initiatives, the drawbacks of its implementation and how the SDI has contributed to enhance capacities and engage communities in coastal management.

Policy framework: the Mediterranean protocol The Protocol of the Barcelona Convention on Integrated Coastal Zone Management is the driven document for ICZM in the Mediterranean. The “ICZM Protocol” was developed to provide a common legal framework for the Contracting Parties - the 21 Mediterranean states and the EU - to promote and implement ICZM in the Mediterranean, entering into force in March 2011. The importance of the ratification of the protocol resides in its acceptance as a tool to implement the ICZM process (either as policies or strategies) in the Mediterranean countries, providing a framework on what needs to be considered when managing the coast, both in terms of boundaries and information. The ICZM Protocol (art.2) recognises the need of integration and management of the land and the sea when defining “Coastal zone”. This is understood as the geomorphologic area, either side of the seashore, in

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which the interaction between the marine and land parts occurs in the form of complex ecological and resource systems made up of biotic and abiotic components coexisting and interacting with human communities and relevant socioeconomic activities. Along these lines, the ICZM Protocol envisaged the need “to set out an agreed reference format and process to collect appropriate data in national inventories with the aim to facilitate the regular observation of the state and evolution of the coastal zones (art. 16.3)”. Furthermore, one of the 10 principles of the ICZM Protocol highlights the importance of adaptive management which deals with the issue of risk, which would not only require potential impacts to be assessed at the planning stage, but also continued monitoring and surveillance to ensure the integrity of the coastal zone system i.e. continuous management though tools such as indicators. However, one of the main pillars of ICZM, as recognised by the Protocol, is the requirement for cross-sectoral management approaches in the coastal zone, the institutions dealing with social, economic and environmental issues must themselves be organised in a way to allow integrated approaches to the developed and further implemented. This not only means that appropriate institutional capacity need to be built but that decision makers should be competent in using all the forms of evidence that needs to be taken into account (accessibility to datasets, indicators, reports and tools), but also the need to use of integrated assessment tools should be supported by access to systematic monitoring data for the key resources associated with the coastal zone. These principles, that motivated ICZM, can be translated in the need to provide a state of the art of tools, methods and data (at all levels of spatial management needs) that would allow considering both sides of the seashore (marine and terrestrial) as a continuum. This issue is more than ever linked with the new MSDF and Marine Planning Strategy which would need to be exhaustively integrated in the process of ICZM. The need to effectively manage the coastal zone as well as the need for integration of data between the three environments (land, coast, marine) requires a management system that efficiently incorporates them all, which in turn means the combination of data from different sources (water, geology, urban, land use, boundaries and policy among others) and a variety of formats (ESRI shapefiles, raster, images, satellite data and models). Further, as ICZM is a process based on sound decision-making, coastal researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds, private individuals, citizens groups, and all levels of public and private sector organisations require timely access to a wide variety of reliable marine and coastal spatial databases (Bartlett et al. 2004). One of the main objectives of PEGASO Project is to build on existing capacities, and also develop common novel approaches, to support integrated policies for the coastal, marine and maritime realms of the Mediterranean, and adjust it to the

needs of the Black Sea, consistent with the implementation of the ICZM Protocol for the Mediterranean, but also looking to a marine planning strategy of the seas. With the former aim the construction of a PEGASO Platform was done with a significant involvement of stakeholders, whose were part of the development of a toolbox for monitoring and manage the coast (including indicators, modelling tools and participatory process). The PEGASO SDI, integrated within the Platform, is designed to provide access to the referred economic and environmental data, tools and methods to evaluate the status, monitor trends and share information about coastal and marine systems, and to be the visible platform for accessing and visualising results.

Sharing data for ICZM: implementation process In the last 30 years, the amount of georeferenced data available has grown dramatically following the evolution of the communication means and due to the rapid development of spatial data captures technologies. There are a number of initiatives that either driven by National Governments or supported by the European Commission, or research projects (e.g. SESAME, FP7 Envirogrids), have highlighted the importance of sharing data to facilitate decision-making process, to enhance governance and of course to support the information management needs for implementing and monitoring sustainable development policies. Following on that, the importance of sharing environmental information has been recognized by the EU in their Communication towards a Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) which aims to establish an integrated and shared EU-wide environmental information system, through the collaboration amongst Member States, the European Commission, and the European Environment Agency (EEA). In addition, the launch of initiatives aimed to discover and implement data infrastructures at International and European level (e.g., ODINAFRICA Marine Atlas Project –OMAP–, Australian Marine Spatial Information System – AMSIS–; the US CSDI the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Marine Ecosystem Dynamics and Indicators for North Africa – the MEDINA project; Knowledge-based Sustainable Management for Europe’s Seas –KnowSeas project–) shows that data sharing technologies and the development of common data sharing strategies are increasing in importance as potential tools to deliver major benefits to society. Despite the fact that administrations and governments are recognizing that spatial information is important and must be part of the basic information infrastructure that need to be efficiently coordinated and managed for the interest of all citizens (Ryttersgaard 2001), this huge amount of geospatial data is stored in different places, by different organizations and the vast majority of the data are not being used as

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effectively as they should, particularly in an integrated way. The reasons are mainly that producing geospatial information is expensive, time consuming and requires high level of coordination among Institutions, resulting most of time in inefficiencies in data collection and duplication of efforts. However, in the framework of ICZM and maritime policies (e.g. EU ICZM, EU Integrated Maritime Policy, EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive, Barcelona convention, ICZM protocol for the Mediterranean, Maritime Spatial Planning) the availability and easy access to a wide range of data on the oceans and coastal zones is one of the key aspects to support strategic decision-making and has been widely recognised. Frequently, the amount of data accessible is not an issue as there is vast quantity of data available from many sources but gathering them for particular applications takes considerable effort. Further combining disperse data in the adequate way and turn them into understandable information is most of the time a hard task. Thematic SDIs can cover coastal and marine infrastructures, land uses changes as well as marine habitats and biodiversity (Fowler et al. 2010), but, most importantly, they reinforce the need for a cohesive and decisive management and administration strategy for coastal zones (Binns 2004; Strain et al. 2006). Therefore, the establishment of appropriate coastal and marine data and information infrastructures is becoming of great importance particularly because their capacity to integrate existing, but fragmented data and in improving access to primary data for users, either from public, or business, or academic, government or citizens sector. To some extent, all previous and ongoning initiatives have or are contributing to the establishment of central databases, by using reference standards or dedicated formats to store both spatial data and metadata (Cinnirella et al. 2012). However, many research projects do not make their data interoperable and creating public metadata systems, mainly due to sporadic project funding reasons, the diversity of institutional structures, and the variations in technical capabilities. In other hand, even in succeeding in storing and compiling spatial data from many resources, problems of updating are normally found. The lack of local geonodes network to maintain and update the data in data holder’s environments seems to be one of the main causes.

Fig. 1 Key steps in the building process for Pegaso SDI

The PEGASO SDI for the Mediterranean and the Black Sea PEGASO (“People for ecosystem based governance in assessing sustainable development of ocean and coast”) is a collaborative project between 25 Mediterranean and Black Sea institutions and organizations that seek to assist Mediterranean countries to put into practice the Protocol for ICZM in the Mediterranean and its applicability in the Black Sea. A key piece of the project is to set up a functional and integrated SDI, where all data and indicators produced within the project and other relevant datasets can be analysed, shared and used for coastal management. Therefore, the PEGASO SDI has been designed to support the Shared Governance Platform (www. pegasoproject.eu) and the suite of sustainability assessment tools required for making multi-scale integrated assessments in the coastal zone of coastal zones in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea (Fig. 1). The development of the infrastructure consisted of a set of concatenated processes, including surveys to assess data availability and capacities among partners, harmonisation of data, capacity building activities to develop geonodes, developing a common model to share data, creating metadata records, among others. Results from the survey on the levels of capacity, available data-infrastructures to implement an SDI and potential data and information sources (from the partner institutions and relevant EU projects evidenced the presence of a wealth of information for the entire area covered by the project (e.g. African Marine Atlas and Emodnet including i.a. Emodnet Biology) and a great capacity within the consortium, with promising opportunities to share data and expertise between the partners (Malvárez et al. 2011). However some issues like scale differences, integration and standardization were the most common drawbacks of the analysis. This led to the second step which focused on the achievement of a common understanding and common view on how the SDI should deliver the objectives of the ICZM policies. This was carried out mainly through the construction of a set guidelines on how to build geonodes following the INSPIRE Directive and capacity building actions centred on the importance of standardisation and harmonization of spatial data among partners. It has been well-reported that the varied and multi-sectoral nature of data needed to effectively manage the coast in a

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holistic way presents a considerable challenge for decision makers. This challenge requires a broad variety of interdisciplinary expertise which provides a unique challenge for the design and implementation of efficient SDIs (Cinnirella et al. 2012) but also a wide and suitable dataset which efficiently could be used to monitor and assess the coast. In this sense, the PEGASO SDI has been built by drawing on existing SDIs from project participant, and others, and extends their capabilities via easy Internet access to data. This action was complemented with the construction of a functional network of geographical sites known as local geonodes within those partners Institution’s that have the capacity and willing of having a geonode connected to the central SDI. This network was key in maintaining data at partner’s environment, updating the datasets and the metadata records and allowing sharing geo-data though a shared infrastructure. . Geonodes network and indicators for ICZM The rationale behind the construction of a distributed network of local Geonodes, which can be accessed either independently or all together from a central geonode, is to facilitate the provision and maintenance of data in origin, to enhance the visibility of products and the network and to guarantee sustainability beyond the project’s life the geonode network. This network was built by supporting training and capacity building in the Mediterranean and Black Sea countries, to codevelop and support existing geonodes and to build local/ regional or national geonodes when requested. This infrastructure allows data to be easily accessible through a web portal based on a central, coherent service that will also help in managing communication and dissemination of results amongst partners and the shared ICZM platform components. This resulted in a complex network (see Table 1) which comply with project’s requirements of including only relevant information for coastal management and make this information easily accessible for partners and end-users. By defining a collaborative structure based on geonodes all the data provider, with accessible technological infrastructure to share its geoinformation, participates in the network of Pegaso SDI. A complete geonode consists of a web map server with OGC WMS/WFS/WCS services to make the data and services available in Internet; a metadata catalogue server with OGC CSW services; a web client to display, search, download different kind of data sets and a web site for their own geoportal (alternatively their maps and metadata can be shown via the central SDI engine. A structured approach to ICZM calls for indicators to measure the progress and effects related policies. Initiating, monitoring or evaluating an ICZM process requires a set of governance, environmental, and socio-economic indicators that should relate to the specific management issues that triggered the initiation of the process, such as multiple conflicts,

ecological degradation, community interest or the need for implementing a specific legislation (IOC-UNESCO 2006). Principle 1 of the ICZM Protocol sets that integrated coastal management will require the development of an appropriate indicator set and a good understanding of the direct and indirect drivers of change and will be based on the Drivers Pressures State Impact and Response –DPSIR_ framework (OECD 1993). Following on that, article 27 specifically states that the Parties shall “Define coastal management indicators, taking into account existing ones, and cooperate in the use of such indicators” and “Establish and maintain up-to-date assessments of the use and management of coastal zones”. The general definition of an indicator includes a proxy measure of information that can describe an abstract concept, process or trend, that in the particular case of PEGASO take the form of statistics, state or percentage or combination thereof. The PEGASO indicator’s set are defined taken spatial dimensions into account and all indicator factsheet provides the relevant spatial information considerations to enable replication and application in different spatial scales, from local to regional. Furthermore, metadata records are also compiled in order to help as a baseline assessment of current and past coastal and marine system pressures, states and impacts, against which trends can be analysed, and future projections can be assessed through scenario development. Further, the spatially explicit indicators are integrated with the Land and Ecosystem Accounting (LEAC) and the Cumulative Impact Index (Santoro et al. 2014) and can be visualised and Table 1

Geonode network for construction of the PEGASO SDI

Institution

Installed & Running

Data published

Connected to central Geonode

HCMR MHI UNIVE VLIZ UMVa NARSS UNIGE BSCPS DDNI UOB AREA-ED

YES YES YES YES N/A YES YES N/A N/A N/A N/A

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES NO NO

YES YES YES YES Through VLIZ In progress YES Through UNIGE In progress In progress Not likely

HCMR Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, MHI Marine Hidrophysical Institute-Ukrainian National Academy of Sciencies, UNIVE Universita Ca’Foscari Di Venezia, VLIZ Vlaams Instituut Voor De Zee Vzw, UMVa Université Mohammed V-Agdal, NARSS National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences of Egypt, UNIGE Université de Genève, BSCPS Permanent Secretariat of the Commission on the Protection of the Black Sea against Pollution, DDNI Institutul National de Cercetare Dezvoltare Delta Dunarii, UOB University of Balamand, Lebanon, AREA-ED Association de Réflexion, d’Échanges etd’actions pour l’Environnement et le Développement

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interpreted by an online Atlas (see www.pegasoproject.eu under the pages accessible through the GEOPORTAL). The relevant mapping issues related to indicator construction were supported through both the production of the harmonization guides for data and metadata producers and the indicators factsheet in order to integrate information from different sources. Equally relevant for the success of the construction of the SDI for PEGASO was the role of the Pilot Cases work in the project which was key as they provided one way to generating the kinds of evidence required for data harmonisation although time scales may prevent any ‘final’ outcomes from being achieved and assessed. The work in the cases, as was set up, highlighted the barriers to implementing various stages in the ICZM Planning Process (Shipman et al. 2009) given the variety of scales and issues found. Therefore, the selection and identification of appropriate indicators for specific CASES was performed in some cases through participatory methods. In the PEGASO Project, each partner was invited to calculate the indicators that correspond to their area of activity/study/ within the project (island, river, city, province, county, specific issues, etc.) following the general guidelines but assuring adaption to their region. In this sense, the Cases should perhaps be viewed as open-air laboratories in which the relevant spatial consideration for ICZM principles and processes were tested.

Building a common platform Following the definition, an effective SDI should have a minimum set of components related to geospatial data

Fig. 2 Conceptual diagram of elements in PEGASO SDI and their links

management to facilitate ease-of-use and interoperability; and if it is to be used to support coastal and marine management (GSDI 2009): a) Policies and Institutional Arrangements: governance, data privacy and security, data sharing, cost recovery, standards; b) People: capacity building, cooperation, outreach; c) Data: single/distributed data storage for geospatial data and metadata, and d) Technology: hardware, software, networks, databases, technical implementation plans. The development of the architecture of the PEGASO SDI involved a construction of number of key elements commonly found in these types of infrastructures and that allow the full exploitation of the spatial data; tools to facilitate searching , viewing and interpretation processes. Essentially, a geoportal is a content management system that allows anonymous/ registered users to easily create content and manages all difficulties encountered in the creation of data-driven dynamic web based resources. In Pegaso SDI the geoportal is the main access point to SDI components: the Catalog, Viewer and Atlas. The Viewer and the Catalogue are links to which are designed web applications for locating and visualising interoperable spatial data, while the Atlas is a collection of articles that embraces dynamic content related to regional assessment, final products like Cumulative Impact Mapping (CIM), Land and Ecosystem Accounts (LEAC), as well as ICZM indicators (see Fig. 2). The Pegaso Atlas was built following the principles set by the International Coastal Atlas Network (ICAN) that seeks to facilitate data access and more effective management of coastal and ocean resources while ensuring maximum relevance and added value for the end users. In this sense, the Atlas stores online information resources that can help build collaborative relationships and increasing awareness of the

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opportunities that exist for coastal and marine data sharing among policy makers and resource managers (O’Dea et al. 2011). The SDI Viewer is a desktop-like online application designed to easily render and display map images and vector graphics on browser screens, it is compound of tools to facilitate spatial data visualisation and analysis (measure distances, comparison of indicators). This cross-browser tool has been implemented by using AJAX-based and modern web mapping technologies on the client side in such a way that user experience is fast by leveraging server loads and reducing response times. Specifically, these client-side web frameworks correctly render both map images and vector geometries (features) published in OGC WMS-WFS servers. The Catalogue is an inventory of all the geodata stored on PEGASO SDI either produced within the project either shared through existing geonodes (VLIZ, European Environmental Agency, European Spatial Agency, etc.). It contains an accurate description of each dataset, which is a basic step towards assessing the value of the data owned by an organization and which is organised in metadata records. Moreover, having this accurate and structured description of the datasets opens the door to advanced search capabilities, such as searching datasets having specific keywords, titles, spatial or temporal extents, etc. The catalogue is useful for end users, but at the same time it is the base component on the top of which the rest of products (Viewer, Atlas) are built. The Atlas prototype for the Mediterranean and the Black Sea is a systematic collection of maps that describes some aspects of the knowledge of a specific territory, and is usually complemented with text, images, tables or charts. The PEGASO Atlas is an online tool that is fully integrated in the geoportal and combines interactive maps with text and images, organized in different sections or topics. To create these atlas pages, an extension (plugin) was developed for the available geoportal and allows registered users to create and modify both sections and its content. The added value for normal maps (articles) in CMS is that those users have the possibility to insert maps on a section or a page. The PEGASO SDI was build up on a multi-sectoral collaboration, involving partners, stakeholders, governments and end-users. The process of engaging organizations, gonverments, NGOs across the Mediterranean and giving them a leading role in shaping the infrastructure through either sharing information and adapting and selecting of appropriate decision support methods and tools is in line with best practice and the literature on participatory approaches (Craglia and Onsrud 2003). Moreover, even if the implementation of the ICZM is required of each EU member state that signed the Protocol, on a regional basis, the local and national scale in the Mediterranean requires a special focus due to the diverse cultural, economic, social, and governance conditions that arise in both the surrounding nations and in the Non-EU Countries

such as Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Algeria, Tunisia, among others.

Discussion and conclusions Complex processes such as ICZM need to embrace very varied approaches that, necessarily bridge sectorial as well as technological barriers. One such an element is the complexity as well as the imperative need for sharing spatial data. Though technically SDIs provide the solution to the challenge, the realities for implementation of instruments such as the protocol and latterly the MSDF remain an open issue. The very process of Integrated Coastal Zone Management as a dynamic process for sustainable management of the uses and their interactions in coastal areas on both the marine and land parts presents such a challenge to the institutional framework that is not frequently understood or addressed comprehensively. For instance, the pressure exerted by the significant push to implement ICZM strategies from National and/or Regional Governments in Europe following the 2002 EU Recommendation is facing currently the imminent implementation of a further essential policy such as a Directive on ICZM and Marine Spatial Planning which would only be successful if a robust and well established institutional framework takes the lead and governance mechanisms for the complex ICZM process is readily in place. No small part in this would be the integration of spatial data management and the institutions responsible for data production, sharing and maintenance in the process. Coastal mapping web applications at various levels (international, national, sub-national, local) and their efficiency are helping to optimize the ICZM process, covering the full cycle of information collection, planning, decision-making, management and monitoring of implementation in coastal stakeholders (land managers, policy makers, and ICZM actors) who are the final users of these coastal web platforms. The main goal of an SDI constructed for implementation of ICZM instruments must be the governance platform that helps as a bridge between scientist, data providers and official cartographic administration and end-user communities, going far beyond a conventional bridging via disconnected policy or institutional frameworks. The building of a shared scientific and end users platforms is at the heart of new models of governance. Various authors have recognised the limitations existing in the usability of SDI in real case management scenarios and the implementation of the very INSPIRE Directive in the EU is proving rather complex and challenging (e.g. Strain et al. 2006). Capacity building is normally not an integral part of data focussed SDI development because the organisation responsible for data generation, management and sharing is capable given the significant responsibility that is commonly assigned to the agencies bearing national or regional official

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cartography. However, when SDI must serve thematic information and complex processes such as ICZM, capacity building is a very necessary component that must be taken into account. The capacity not being only related to technical issues (as in cartography, advanced GIS or geodesy) but rather the utilisation of such sciences in the context of ICZM when the institution is also producing thematic or managerial information, maps or statistics. Here is where significant efforts worldwide in development of coastal and/or marine focussed SDI have flawed. The lack of capacity building or training can be compensated by training on the use of the SDI, which is clearly not focusing in the same issue since it is for better use of the technical element. During the development and deployment of the PEGASO SDI capacity building programmes we put in place using both online and workshops to enhance capacity building for the development of contributing geonodes and/or data provision to an ICZM scenario anywhere in Mediterranean or the Black Sea (Malvárez et al. 2011). A further issue for discussion on the success stories associated with SDI may be related with the need to complement these types of highly dedicated and specialised platforms with specific tools such as viewers, atlases, indicator development engines and potential modelling capabilities. An added value is the possibility to combine all of the above with local studies cases. This is of significant importance for the success of ICZM and yet remains a shortcoming in some such SDI. The PEGASO SDI has indicator developer (factsheet backed ready made indicator maps) which may be related to the fact that both initiatives are directly linked to the Protocol for ICZM for the Mediterranean which places significant importance in the indicator sets. Other platforms devote efforts to viewers and download facilities, which may be in them of great usefulness. Compliancy with OGC, though, remains an issue for large existing efforts similar to PEGASO but applied in even larger basins, which relies heavily in vector and raster data centrally, stored and managed in a web GIS. It is envisaged that this strategy, albeit technically and user-oriented, may hamper the potential success and sustainability of ICZM as a process integrating public and private stakeholders. A collaborative-type SDI might be supported through the creation of networks of local geonodes within every institution involved in the ICZM process in order to deliver harmonised sets of accessible data and tools through Internet services on a specialised viewer. An inspiration currently is the incrustation of modelling capabilities through online applications that can exploit interoperable systems and data sets. This will provide a new dimension for users to customise indicators and other dynamic products of interest in scenario building and other prospective tools. A new challenge is presented to the most advanced SDI, which may have now to allow a design for scaling up and down its operations in the ICZM process if the SDI concept is to improve on distributed GIS.

Effective coastal and marine governance is reliant upon access to spatial information (Ting and Williamson 2000; Barry et al. 2003; Strain et al. 2006). One of the main advantages of an SDI for integrated environmental management is easy data accessibility, which not only enables scientific analyses, but facilitates fast and informed decision making (Cömert et al. 2008; Binns 2004). In addition, the collaboration between different institutions in the development of a dedicated SDI, as the PEGASO SDI aggregating national portals and regional organizations portal with information on the Mediterranean and Black Sea coast becomes a powerful tool allowing governments, companies and citizens to easily find, understand and re-use coastal data for information, evaluation and decision making. Further, this collaboration allows partners institutions (25 research institutions and Governments in Pegaso) to benefit from the resultant networking, which in the long term, supports the accumulation of spatial data, models, and expertise (Tolvanen and Kalliola 2008) and assures the sustainability of the infrastructure. However, even the countless efforts to improve the design and implementation of thematic SDIs to support policies implementation remain far from being fully operational and fully integrated (Cinnirella et al. 2012). This lack of integration can be attributed to existing national policies on data sharing (European and NonEuropean countries differences), and differences in monitoring resolution, data quality control (metadata are absent or do not follow existing standards and collection) and data collection. Until recently, SDIs were focused mainly on the management of coastal zones (Strain et al. 2006; Williamson et al. 2006) but recent adoptions of marine spatial planning (MSP) processes require the availability and analysis of multidisciplinary data. Therefore, next steps should be focussed in the combination of efforts made in the construction of thematic SDI for coastal issues with those developed or under development to implement and assess the MSFD requirements, in order to capitalise efforts and funds invested. The conclusion is that these are crucial times for the definitive convergence of spatial data management and coastal-marine management. The wealth of SDI now fully operational remains mostly linked to spatial data managers (official cartographic agencies at various scales) and is struggling to provide specific tools and capacity to ICZM stakeholders and users, but also to governments. The consolidation of nationwide and international initiatives will, certainly, promote a much more efficient and sustainable scenario for ICZM if further strengthening is secured between spatial data and the rest of the complex institutional framework servicing management as the challenge consolidates the spatial links for coastal and marine spatial planning.

Author's personal copy Importance of SDI for ICZM in the Mediterranean Acknowledgments To all PEGASO partners and especially to UAB Team and VLIZ team for co-development of the SDI. The contents are partially shared with reports and public deliverables written by University Pablo de Olavide team in conjunction with other PEGASO partners during the life of the project and are made available at Pegaso website www. pegasoproject.eu.

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