A small-scale spatial analysis system for maritime Australia

Ocean & Coastal Management, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 163-195, 1995 Copyright ~ 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Northern Ireland. All rights reserved 0964-5691/95 $9.50 + 0.00 ELSEVIER

0964-5691(95)00020-8

A small.scale spatial analysis system for maritime Australia Neil T. M. Hamilton & K. D. Cocks CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology, PO Box 84, Lyneham, ACT 2602, Australia (Received 13 January 1995; accepted 12 July 1995)

ABSTRACT Within the field o f resource and environmental management, the paramount value o f a spatial analysis system is as a tool for regionalising a case-area in diverse directed ways, each being useful for (i) increasing scientific understanding of that area (intellectualisation) or (ii) for allocating operational categories (for example, funding categories, regulatory categories) differentially between parts of the case-area (called operations support or policy support). Success in serving these scientific and administrative values depends in turn upon two primary attributes o f the spatial analysis system and a larger number of secondary attributes. These primary attributes are (i) the range and quality o f geocoded data sets held in store or able to be accessed and (ii) the range o f spatial analysis techniques which can be called upon for operating on stored data sets. Secondary attributes influencing a spatial analysis system's value include its accessibility to potential users, its ease o f use, the judgement and experience o f its users and the quality of its cartographic and other outputs. The present paper is a status report on the Australian Coastal And Marine Resources Information System, CAMRIS, a spatial analysis system developed as a demonstration for Australia. CAMRIS contains or can access raw and value-added data sets which comprehensively cover both terrestrial and marine components o f the Australian maritime estate. Onshore, for the immediate coastal strip, data held or accessible include geocoded data on vegetation, geology, landform, wetland and coastline type, land use, climate and population. For coastal drainage basins, data sets include river networks, river flows, wetland attributes, soils, geology, elevation, vegetation, mineral deposits, beach attributes, population and bird distributions. Nearshore data include geocoded data on estuary attributes, island attributes, seagrass beds and marine protected areas. 163

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N. T. M. Hamilton, K. D. Cocks Offshore (oceanic) geocoded data held or accessible include bathymetry, sea surface temperature and salinity~dissolved oxygen profiles, together with a variety of geophysical records including gravity, magnetics, seismic track lines, substrates, waves, winds, storms, tides and cyclones. While raw data are stored as such whenever available, many of these data sets are in value-added form, held perhaps as a surface or choropleth or as a function of primary data items. A range of spatial analysis techniques is routinely available for application to CAMRIS data sets including those within the SPANS, Arc Info, and Idrisi geographic information systems, the S Plus exploratory data analysis package, and specialist in-house packages such as PA TN for multivariate positive classification and L UPIS for resource allocation and normative classification. CAMRIS demonstration studies in various stages of completion address: (1) selection of coastal and marine protected areas; (2) identification of priority areas for the management of land-based marine pollution; (3) planning for coastal population growth; and (4) synoptic impacts of climatic change in the coastal zone. Further candidate studies being considered include mariculture prospects and proactive management of oil spills and leaks. An important indicator of success for the CAMRIS project would be for it to be seen as a prototype for a properly-funded multi-agency national maritime (coastal and marine) spatial analysis system. Australia, with one of the worlds largest and most diverse maritime estates and with a small population imposing increasing pressures on that estate, needs powerful policy and operations support tools.

1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND CAMRIS, standing for Coastal And Marine Resources Information System, is a small-scale spatial analysis system being developed by several research divisions of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). It is part of that organisation's Coastal Zone Program. The Environmental Resources Information Network unit of the Commonwealth Department of Environment is a major extra-mural collaborator in the project, as is the Coastal Geoscience Unit of the Australian Geological Survey Organisation. The initial goal of the CAMRIS project is to demonstrate that a small-scale national maritime spatial analysis system can usefully support the management and allocation of Australia's coastal plus marine (equals maritime) resources. This goal will be approached via demonstration projects for each of several selected resource management issues, comparing and evaluating alternative policy options for addressing an issue.

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A hoped-for longer-term benefit is that success in this initial work will encourage the setting up of a permanent national Government facility with capabilities and databases comparable with but more developed than CAMRIS. This paper has the purpose of summarily describing origins, progress and plans for CAMRIS, and of putting the CAMRIS project into an institutional context, in particular its link to related initiatives in other organisations. We start with a brief appreciation of the remarkable natural system under consideration. 1.1. Natural features of maritime Australia

Of the worlds nations, Australia, the largest island, has the longest ice-free coastline (c. 30000km) and the second largest economic exclusion zone. In a global context, natural features of her coasts and surrounding oceans which have major implications for the management and value of these as productive, amenity and service resources include the following. •

•

• • • •

•

•

A large proportion of the coastline is without major fluvial deliveries of sediment and fresh water. Partly as a consequence, offshore bottom sediments in many areas are of biological rather than terrigenous origin. Muddy coasts and sandy beach and barrier coasts predominate over rocky coasts, although lithification of beach and dune systems is common. The continents c. 800 estuaries tend to be drowned river valleys of modest size, reflecting the size of the rivers feeding them. There is an absence of past glacial influences such as a scoured continental shelf or pebbly beaches. The country sits on a tranquil tectonic plate, minimally disturbed by seismic events, including tsunamis. The continent is completely surrounded by large distinct water masses, separable on the basis of temperature, salinity, chemical, biogeographic, hydrodynamic and other characteristics. Because of the continent's location in low latitude oceans, most of the coastline is subject to statistically predictable wave and wind environments. Relatedly, the coastline north of Geraldton in the west and Coifs Harbour in the east is subject to cyclones. Australia is the only continent without significant offshore upwelling to enhance the nutrient content of offshore surface waters. Partly as a consequence, pelagic and demersal fisheries resources are extremely limited.

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Australia has the largest seagrass beds in the world and the largest number of seagrass species. It has major provinces of mangroves and of coral ecosystems (including the world's largest, the Great Barrier Reef). The coastal zone, onshore plus offshore, supports a disproportionately large fraction of the continent's biodiversity. Passive continental rifting of most of the continental margin in the Phanerozoic era has produced a coast with strong regional characteristics. These reflect geologic evolution, coastal processes, and climate through time.

Scientific understanding of state and process in this vast, unique natural resource is best described as patchy. 1'2 For example, current knowledge of distributions of most resources, particularly biological resources, can be adequately represented on small-scale maps. Because it will be a long and expensive national endeavor to upgrade this knowledge in a systematic way, one justification for the CAMRIS project is the need to see just how much use can be made now of the limited technical knowledge already to hand in support of improved management of the maritime estate. Another is to help identify, in a systematic and comprehensive way, major gaps in past inventory efforts.

1.2. Utilisation patterns About 26 per cent of the Australian population of 17.8million live within 3 km of the coastline) Most of the rest live within half a day's drive of the coast where the beaches and their hinterlands support much of the population's recreational activity. This concentration of population means that most heavy industry is also found in coastal areas. Offshore areas support a marine industry worth over $16 billion annually, including $4.5 billion in exports. 4 In recent decades the near-coast population has increased at the same rate as the population elsewhere, 3 and if this proportion holds as total population grows towards a projected level of 27million by 2051, plausibly there could be another three million people living in the coastal fringe by then. There is considerable concern in Australia over the consequences of this rapid recent and likely future coastal urbanisation. Water pollution, ecosystem/habitat destruction and landscape degradation are among the most commonly asserted consequences. One of the most recent expressions of this concern 5 is a report entitled 'The Injured" Coastline'. It concludes: As the pace of development and population growth along the

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coastline accelerate, so do concerns about the consequences of such development and the effects of increased human activities upon one of our greatest resources and assets, the beautiful Australian coast. The Resource Assessment Commission, a commonwealth government natural resource review body, conducted an inquiry for comparable reasons into building, tourism, mariculture and associated development in the coastal zone, particularly outside metropolitan areas. 6 The conservation versus development issue is probably more sharply focused in the coastal zone than elsewhere in Australia. Given the Australian penchant for coastal recreation, and with increasing real incomes, it is a most reasonable scenario to foresee the heavily-settled coastal zone from Cairns in north Queensland to Adelaide in South Australia continuing to be the major setting for resource and environment conflict, competition and controversy. Rising demands for accessible sites near population centres for protective, productive and consumptive uses will have to be met from a fixed land (and water) supply. The pervasive coastal issue for many years is then likely to be the impact of interest group demands on a resource which is scarce and essentially delicate in its scenery, landforms, water bodies and vegetation. Nearshore and offshore resource management issues are still not as public as onshore and hinterland issues, but have been receiving relatively more attention in recent years. Three issues which stand out are overfishing of various commercial species, the threat of land-based pollution to marine fauna and marine ecosystems such as coral, kelp and seagrass systems, and the threat of marine-based oil pollution from shipping and the offshore petroleum industry. Formal sea use planning, as in the North Sea, 7 may yet emerge as a response to increasing pressures on the resource base including fishing, mining, dumping, transit of hazardous cargoes and Aboriginal sea claims. 8

1.3. Sources of maritime spatial data While diverse types of spatial data describing the Australian maritime domain have been recorded physically since the sixteenth century, it is only in the last two decades that any have been recorded digitally and only in the last decade that systems explicitly intended to facilitate recurrent use of acquired data have been established. Initiatives qualifying for description as maritime spatial information

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systems have been implemented by Commonwealth and State agencies and by non-governmental organisations, notably petroleum companies. It is these which are most likely to hold data of immediate usefulness for a national maritime spatial analysis system. In particular, digital data sets describing specific resources and their use over a large part of the Australian maritime estate at a scale approaching 1:1 million or better stand to be most useful. An early benefit of the CAMRIS project has been that it has raised its participant's awareness of the existence, themes and coverage of maritime spatial data sets in Australia. 9 However, while a number of known data sets would obviously be valuable for completing planned CAMRIS demonstration projects, it does not follow that they will be available for that purpose. Digital spatial data are expensive to produce and commonly regarded by their producers as something to be retained in-house for competitive reasons or to be bartered or sold on a cost-recovery or profit-making basis. Because the CAMRIS project does not have funds which would allow it to buy or produce anew the data sets needed for its planned demonstration projects, it has established collaborative research or barter arrangements with custodians of important data sets. The requirement is not to achieve ownership of key data sets but to gain permission to use these for research and demonstration purposes. Five particularly important custodians are the Australian Oceanographic Data Centre, the Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO Divisions of Fisheries and of Oceanography, and the Australian Geological Survey Organisation. The Australian Oceanographic Data Centre, under the aegis of the Naval Hydrographic Service, forms an Australian link in the global chain of world marine data centres coordinated by the International Oceanographic Commission and International Hydrographic Organisation. The Australian Oceanographic Data Centre is currently implementing a major geographic information system initiative, the Hydrocomp system, which will confirm it as the central repository for oceanic data in the Australian region and beyond. 1° Nationally, the Australian Oceanographic Data Centre is responsible for about fifteen physical oceanographic parameters, including bathythermal and salinity data sets. The Centre is also responsible for the processing of raw oceanographic data to produce various information products, e.g. for processing NOAA data to produce water clarity surfaces. The Bureau of Meteorology maintains a national climate database with extensive offshore components. The Specialised Oceanographic Centre in the Bureau of Meteorology (a collaborative program with

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the Australian Oceanographic Data Centre) collates sea temperature readings in the Australian region from expendable probes and moored thermistor chains. The CSIRO Division of Oceanography is a collector and custodian of a significant fraction of the oceanographic data in the Australian region and has high-level capabilities in ocean data collection and modelling. The Division holds many thousand conductivity, temperature and depth profiles. A substantial number of these stations also have profiles of dissolved oxygen. These data are complemented by approximately 40000 hydrology stations (stations taken with a number of discrete bottles rather than a profiling instrument) and ship-based sea surface temperatures and salinities. Other major data sets have been acquired with digital sounders, moored current meters, an acoustic Doppler current profiler, expendable bathy-thermographs and tracked surface drifters. Satellite-generated daily sea surface temperature data have been collected since 1986. CSIRO Division of Fisheries is the country's major generator of offshore biological data, particularly commercial fish, crustacean and mollusc populations but also of the dynamics of marine microorganisms and nearshore plant communities. Records from the Division, from museum collections and catch records from the Australian Fish Management Authority have contributed to the recent production of an atlas of Australian fish,n as well as the definitive Australian atlas of sharks and rays. 12 The Australian Geological Survey Organisation is the country's major source of offshore geophysical and geochemical, mineral resource (particularly hydrocarbons) and substrate distribution data. The Ocean Sciences Institute at the University of Sydney is currently compiling a national database of substrate records from the Australian Geological Survey Organisation, the Naval Hydrographer, CSIRO and other sources.

Onshore, important digital resource data sets covering Australia's coastal catchments are held by the National Resources Information Centre in the Department of Primary Industries and Energy, the Environmental Resources Information Network, the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at the Australian National University, the Australian Geological Survey Organisation, and various divisions of CSIRO. Space here does not permit a review. Both onshore and offshore, State agencies are active to varying degrees in capturing digital resource data 9 but, by definition, their interest is within State boundaries (offshore to three nautical miles) and there is no machinery for ensuring that data produced by different States are compatible

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enough to be compiled into data sets of value for a national coastal and marine information system. Remote sensing is playing an increasingly important role in the acquisition of maritime spatial information. A range of new marine and coastal remote sensing systems is beginning to come on stream, although mostly with less than comprehensive coverage of the CAMRIS area of interest) 3 For example, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology operates a network of microwave radars for weatherwatch purposes. Most are located in coastal areas and well-placed for making observations over the oceans. Also contributing here are new algorithms for extracting further value from archived digital imagery, for example the unmixing of depth and substrate components of Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery) 4

2. BUILDING CAMRIS

2.1. Origins CAMRIS is an evolutionary development from COASTAL ARIS, the onshore coastal zone component of the Australian Resources Information System (ARIS)lS--Australia's first whole-continent natural resources spatial information system. COASTAL ARIS in turn was largely based on an extensive inventory exercise (using 1:40000 black and white air photo interpretation) of coastal Australia undertaken in the early 1980s16 in the then CSIRO Division of Water and Land Resources. Galloway et a1.16 described landforms and vegetation in each of 3027 strips, 10 km long by 3 km wide, abutting the Australian coast. These data were subsequently augmented with population data, 17 crude soils data and synthetic climate data TM to form the core of COASTAL ARIS. 19 One major task in bringing these data into CAMRIS has been to digitise the boundaries of these mapping units and the locations of some 42 000 sample points used by Galloway et a l ) 6 The move to develop CAMRIS emerged from two perceptions: (a) that, despite its small scale, ARIS had been successful in providing useful analysis of a range of land-based resource issues15; and (b) that a number of important coastal zone issues would similarly benefit from being analysed spatially if digital facilities for doing this were available. In 1991 CAMRIS became the foundation for one of four projects comprising the CSIRO Coastal Zone Research Program. While the CSIRO Coastal Zone Program draws, overall, on the work and interests of eight Divisions of CSIRO, the CAMRIS project is a

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collaboration between three Divisions: Wildlife and Ecology, Soils, and Fisheries. The Division of Wildlife and Ecology has responsibility for system-building and for demonstrating the policy support value of CAMRIS. The initial contribution of the Division of Soils is to identify, for the Australian coastal zone, a comprehensive set of morphostratigraphic units and interpret these in terms of their genesis and geotechnical properties. The initial contribution of the Division of Fisheries has been to map, for the first time, the totality of Australia's seagrass beds. 2.2. Geographic scope Nearshore waters and coastal fringe areas are affected by human activity throughout coastal catchments, largely via effects on rainfall runoff. Consequently, the landward limit for CAMRIS is being formally set at coastal catchment boundaries except in the case of (i) the Murray-Darling river system (one seventh of the continent) which will be truncated at the junction of the Murray and the Darling and (ii) coastal areas without significant external drainage (e.g. the Nullabor plain). In the latter case, an arbitrary limit of 100 km from the coastline has been set. The reference coastline for CAMRIS is the mean high water mark as detailed on the A U S L I G (Australian Land Information Group) 1:100000 scale topographic map series. CAMRIS will be developed at a nominal scale of 1:1 million; the present pixel size for raster data is 270m. Much data needed for CAMRIS demonstrations is however available at larger than target scale. The CAMRIS seaward limit is formally at the edge of the continental shelf as defined under the 1982 International Law of the Sea Convention. This seaward limit replaces the old 200nautical mile limit of Commonwealth jurisdiction and will give Australia an Exclusive Economic Zone several times larger than the continent itself. In practice however there can be no spatial limits to CAMRIS. Coverage will be extended as far onshore or offshore as needed to address maritime policy/management issues of interest to Australia anywhere within the Indian-Pacific-Southern Ocean region. However, few data on Australian Antarctic Territory/seas or the island territories are currently held in or planned for CAMRIS. 2.3. Hardware and software CAMRIS has been established using SPANS geographic information system software running under the UNIX operating system on an IBM RS 6000 platform. SPANS is a technically advanced geographic

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information system with particular capabilities for spatial modelling, and a modelling language able to address multiple map, attribute, and vector coverages simultaneously. Other GIS packages including Arc Info and Idrisi are used for data handling and analysis as required. Packages for a number of spatial analytical operations are available for use with CAMRIS. These include the commercial S-PLUS package for aspatial statistical analysis and two packages developed in-house, namely PATN for multivariate classification2° and LUPIS for land/sea allocation. 21 These latter allow both positive and normative regionalisation tasks to be undertaken. 22 LUPIS is an established package which allows sub-areas within an area to be differentially allocated between candidate uses or management regimes on the basis of how well alternative allocations collectively satisfy a set of allocation guidelines. For example, its forerunner, LUPLAN, was used to demonstrate the production of information-rich zoning plans for the Cairns section of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. 23

2.4. Progress with data acquisition It is a basic principle in resource management that data collection efforts should be confined to items specifically identified as necessary and sufficient for planned analyses. However, it is also true that practitioners in any field recognise certain data sets as core or central to the type of work they are doing and see the potential value of certain opportunistically-encountered data sets. So, while CAMRIS data acquisition thus far has been primarily driven by a perception of data needed for the planned demonstration projects described below, there has also been a willingness to acquire certain other secondary data sets judged to have a future value greater than their acquisition cost. Conversely, the availability of relevant data has had some influence on choice of demonstration projects for CAMRIS. Appendix A summarises data sets which are physically held in CAMRIS or routinely accessible as of November 1994.

2.5. Demonstration projects As a generalisation, a procedural delay perhaps, there are four questions to be answered, in turn, when planning the use of a spatial analysis system for operations support or policy support:

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What issue is to be addressed? What goals are to be sought in relation to the issue? What type of regionalisation would allow the achievement of those goals to be wholly or partially measured? Or What type of regionalisation would allow the benefits and drawbacks of alternative programs for achieving those goals to be compared? What spatial and other data are needed in order to produce such a regionalisation?

Answering these questions is not a mechanical process. Judgement and specialised knowledge are required at each step. Here, the starting point for identifying projects for demonstrating the value of a national maritime spatial analysis system has been a list of 20 significant maritime resource management issues compiled originally for an Ecologically Sustainable Development working group addressing coastal issues. 24 Appendix B lists these issues, together with, for each, an exemplary policy position which a government sensitive to both economic and environmental values might take. There is no suggestion that these offered policy positions are the only ones which might be taken or even that they are especially commendable. Their role is to cue examples of the types of regionalisation which a system like CAMRIS might be asked to provide. This in turn leads directly to an identification of the spatial data needed to produce such regionalisations. The four tasks which, have been selected as initial applications of CAMRIS are listed below. (a) Selection of coastal and marine protected areas (Issue 6). (b) Identification of priority areas for the management of land-based marine pollution (Issue 4). (c) Planning for coastal population growth (Issue 8). (d) Synoptic impacts of climatic change in the coastal zone (Issue 20). A short discussion of ideas, progress and plans for researching each of these follows.

2.5.1. Selection of coastal and marine protected areas A wide range of factors has been suggested25 as needing to be considered when nominating sites as marine biological reserves within which exploitative and other uses will be minimal or conducted in such a way as to have minimal impact on the sustenance and diversity of resident biological systems. These include attributes of the biota, such as naturalness, economic importance, representativeness, rarity, taxonomic distinctness and diversity, plus site feasibility considerations such

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as threat of disturbance, tenure status and accessibility. Unfortunately, knowledge of marine life and its distribution is inadequate to pursue a purely 'biota-based' approach to reserve selection within the Australian marine realm. As a bare minimum, one would need a medium-scale ecosystem 'map' of the marine realm, a task which has not even been completed for the better-known Australian terrestrial realm. Comprehensive species and sub-species distribution data would also be desirable, particularly for fish, molluscs, crustaceans, mammals, seagrasses, corals, mangroves and macro-algae. Ray & McCormick-Ray26 recognised this data gap and suggested a 'landscape-seascape' approach to reserve selection. This approach is based on the assumption that areas which differ with respect to key environmental parameters would differ with respect to the biotic assemblages they support. Therefore, it is argued, if marine protected areas are selected to represent the range of landscape-seascapes, they will also represent the range of marine ecosystems. The logic is similar to the 'environmental domains' and 'environmental modelling' approaches under development by terrestrial ecologists. The greater feasibility of the landscape-seascape or environmental regions approach over the biota-based approach is seen to lie in the greater availability of physico-chemical marine data vis-gt-vis biotic data. The role of biotic data under the landscape-seascape approach is to refine and verify results from landscape-seascape classification exercises, i.e. these must be compatible with known biota distribution data. Ray & McCormick-Ray26 further suggest that the main needs for physico-chemical data come under three headings: • • •

land-seashed data, basically the runoff hydrology of coastal watersheds; shallow water data, particularly hydrodynamic data such as tides, storm events and inshore currents; oceanic data including temperature, chemical and salinity characteristics of 'water masses'.

Recognising the practical constraints on siting marine protected areas within environmental regions, Ray & McCormick-Ray26 identify a further need to acquire 'human activities' data, in particular locations of existing marine protected areas, fishing activities, pollution impacts and marine traffic. A variation on the landscape-seascape or environmental domains approach is the 'marine regions' approach used by Parks Canada to guide the development of a system of national marine parks representative of the full range of biological and oceanographic variation found

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in Canada's marine environments.27 Each marine region is relatively homogeneous in terms of climate, seabed geology, ocean currents, water mass characteristics (temperature and salinity), sea ice distribution, coastal landforms, marine plants, seabirds and marine mammals, or contains recurring patterns of these characteristics. The Canadian approach is directly analogous to the terrestrial 'land systems' approach developed by CSIRO. 28 It could be implemented in Australia by supplementing existing data sets with 'expert judgement' maps (e.g. water mass maps) produced by a panel of marine specialists. A first Australian effort in the 'sea systems' direction was the set of marine geographic zones and the classification scheme for marine habitats proposed several years ago at a Council of Nature Conservation Ministers workshop. 29 Participants divided the Australian marine realm into 21 geographic zones (13 coastal, four oceanic (to Australian Fishing Zone boundary), four-extraterritorial oceans). Each of these was seen as further divisible on the basis of the presence/absence of two substrate types (hard, soft) and eight biotic categories (mangal/saltmarsh, algal/kelp, seagrass, coral, oceanic epifauna, other epifauna, inconspicuous biota). Given present levels of biogeographic knowledge, it would be a major advance even to map the Australian marine realm according to these biotic categories. A more recent second attempt at delphic bioregionalisation of Australian waters, at a workshop of all state, territory, and relevant Commonwealth bodies in early 1995, introduced no significant improvement in methodological approach or understanding of the drivers behind regionalisation for conservation planning. At this stage, no decision has been made about the approach to marine protected area selection which will be taken in a CAMRIS demonstration. However, the types of data sets discussed above as being needed for the task are mostly available, although perhaps at the limits of target scale. Possibilities for modelling marine species distributions as input to a reserve selection exercise will be discussed below as a possible future CAMRIS project. 2.5.2. Identification o f priority areas for the management of land-based marine pollution Three quarters of all marine pollution is land based. 3°'31 The rest is from ocean dumping, shipping, offshore mining and oil production. The offshore impact of land-based water pollution in any coastal region is a function of: (i) quantities of biostimulants and biotoxicants delivered to estuarine and marine waters; (ii) the dispersal and retention patterns of these; (iii) the pattern of exposure of biological communities to

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dispersed and retained pollutants or their biological products (e.g. toxic and non-toxic algae); and (iv) the sensitivity of exposed communities to pollutant/intermediate product loads. The demonstration will attempt to identify, synoptically, offshore areas where the impact cost of an increase in pollutant discharges to estuarine waters is likely to be particularly high-pollution 'hotspots'. Such areas will tend to be those fed by runoff from major urban, industrial or agricultural developments and supporting extensive sensitive communities (seagrasses, coral, mangroves, etc.) in a physical environment (tidal flushing, plume formation, sediment composition, currents, etc.) conducive to slow dispersion of pollutants. Work has begun on identifying estuaries delivering significant pollutant loads and mapping major coastal-marine ecosystems. Simple models relating pollutant loads to catchment land use 32 and pollution susceptibility to the physical environment 33 are being reviewed for usability. The project may be extended to look at beach pollution, using the results of a national survey of all surfing beaches by the Surfrider Foundation (M. Legge-Wilkinson, personal communication, 1994). 2.5.3. Planning for coastal population growth Two projects have been identified as possible useful contributions to the task of managing the major population growth anticipated for the Australian coastal zone over the coming decades. 1.

2.

Identifying and mapping coastal areas where projected population growth is liable to lead to unacceptable change in selected indicators of quality of life, e.g. population density, loss of open space, pressure on areas of intrinsically high conservation value. A preliminary version of this project has now been completed. 3 Australia does not have a national settlement strategy34 and there has been little political interest for several decades in proactively settling the ever-growing number of Australians. Nevertheless, a case can be made for the value of identifying and mapping coastal areas particularly suitable for major new population centres. Economic, environmental and social factors are all relevant. An earlier exercise doing this (but not limited to coastal areas) is reported by C o c k s . 34

More broadly, land use planning is a social technology of proven value for balancing stakeholder interests in the coastal zone more acceptably than simple market forces. Even if this is so at local and regional scale though, it may not be practicable or meaningful at the

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national scale of a CAMRIS demonstration. The possibilities need to be further explored. 2.5.4. Synoptic impacts o f climatic change in the coastal zone A first attempt to use the predecessor to CAMRIS to elaborate regional differences in the implications of climate change for coastal Australia was made by Cocks et al. 35 The exercise divided the coast into 27 regions on the basis of settlement pattern (metropolitan, major or minor urban, rural) and ranked these, within each type of settlement pattern, in terms of relative importance (urgency) of undertaking a detailed assessment of the impact of climate/sea level change. The exercise was unacceptably qualitative and intuitive, partly due to a lack of basic digital data (like five and ten metre isobaths and terrestrial contours). It was also due to not using morphostratigraphic models to type coastal sectors according to their response in geomorphological terms to changes in storminess, cyclone frequency, etc. as well as sea level rise. This project is being developed in collaboration with the Australian Geological Survey Organisation. An approach has not been developed but one possibility might be to apply the IPCC method of evaluating the impact of sea level rise. Data of the type being sought by Gornitz & Kanciruk 36 for a global coastal hazards database will probably be needed, i.e. elevation (relief), bedrock geology (classified according to erodibility), coastal landforms, vertical movements (relative sea level changes), horizontal shoreline movements (erosion or accretion), tidal ranges, wave heights. The impact of climatic change on coastal biodiversity37 may be examined subsequent to the above exercise with its focus on earth materials.

3. DISCUSSION M a n a g e m e n t of the Australian maritime estate is an enormous task relative to the-country's population, but inescapably central to capturing industrial, amenity and service values which are socially acceptable. This paper is posited on the belief that a national maritime spatial analysis system would be one imaginative and effective response to that challenge. Discussion therefore focuses on two ideas. One is that for the moment, it is worth carrying the development of CAMRIS forward, both for any immediate contribution it might make and as a learning experience preparatory to the time when a decision to establish a properly funded multi-agency system is taken. The other focus is on

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whether such a collective system has any prospect of being established and what its scope should' be. 3.1. Future of CAMRIS In this paper, CAMRIS has been characterised as a spatial analysis system rather than as a geographic (or spatial) information system or as a decision support system. The intention in so doing is to emphasise that the central feature of CAMRIS is that it can be used easily to carry out a range of analytical operations on geocoded (maritime) data and that this range will be extended as projects reveal the need for further such capabilities. Conversely, the intention is to dispel any perception of CAMRIS being a decision support system, meaning a system tailored to a single repeating suite of tasks, or any perception of it being a traditional geographic information system with little analytical capability beyond neighbourhood, compositing, topological and distance calculations. CAMRIS will have served its larger purpose if it is eventually seen as having been a useful prototype for a properly funded national maritime information system. As a small example, the 40 000 points sampled by Galloway et al) 6 offer a baseline and sampling frame for selecting a set of long term sites for monitoring the impact of natural processes, land use and land management practices on coastal character over time. In the meantime CAMRIS provides a platform for further explorations of important maritime issues, data sources and analytical methods. 3.2. Candidate demonstration projects With appropriate collaborators, immediate possibilities exist for illuminating further issues from the Appendix B list, including the following items. 3.2.1. Mapping mariculture potential (Issue 14) Analysis here might centre on identifying naturally productive estuaries with high turnover rates and undeveloped catchments (T. Ward, personal communication, 1994). 3.2.2. Vulnerability o f the coastline to oil spills (Issue 12) The Australian Maritime Safety Authority, as part of its responsibilities under the National plan to combat pollution of the sea by oil, is providing funds to the States for development of coastal resource atlases. The primary function of these is to identify the distribution of

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ecosystems and infrastructure along the coastline and classify them in terms of sensitivity to oil and thus allocate priorities for protection in the event of an oil spill. The types of data needed for such an analysis include: distribution of ecosystem types (coral reefs, seagrass beds, mangroves, kelp forests, etc.); distribution of wildlife, including vulnerable and endangered species, roosting, nesting, nursery and rookery sites; current and wind patterns; bathymetry; coastal geomorphology; mariculture facilities; types and intensity of uses; infrastructure such as marinas, boat ramps and helicopter pads; and cultural values. 3.2.3. Sea use planning (Issue 7) Some intensively used seas such as the North Sea are already highly regulated as regards siting and permitted technologies for a wide range of activities/ Demands for such regulation have not emerged in Australia yet but, looking ahead, the needs and possibilities for sea use planning in some or all of the Australian marine estate warrant investigation. The starting point would be to document present and foreseeable future use of Australian seas for industrial, shipping and conservation purposes.

3.3. Candidate research projects While regionalisations which illuminate policy and management choices are the CAMRIS product of most immediate social relevance, there are a number of more basic research projects which, if successfully completed, would improve the quality of more applied exercises. Some examples, all of which would need to be undertaken with appropriate collaborators, are given below. 3.3.1. Biogeographic and resource modelling • Using computer induction to model fish species distributions as a function of depth preferences, temperature, etc. • Modelling nearshore bottom type. • Modelling relative mineral prospectivity, particularly mineral sands. • Identification of areas with seasonal recreation potential. • Modelling the occurrence of mangrove (acid sulphate) soils. 3s • Modelling seagrass beds--what environmental parameters control their distribution? • Terrestrial pollution buffering capacity. The land's capacity to absorb pollutants is a function of pollutant type, soil type, climate regime, surface and sub-surface drainage network, and biota sensitivity.

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3.3.2. Regionalisation • Use of biological and physical surrogates to model zones of onshore and marine biodiversity. • Use of multivariate classification methods to delineate large marine ecosystems and oceanic-scale water masses. • Geoscientific classification of the coastal zone for the purpose of identifying environmental domains. 3.3.3. Simple modelling of dynamic processes Data in the marine environment present their own set of difficulties and challenges. If it is to be of any use for modelling dynamic processes, a national maritime spatial analysis system must be able to store, display and manipulate data in four dimensions (x,y,z,t). Dynamic processes for which simple robust models would be particularly useful include: coastal landform-process interactions; oil spill trajectory modelling; flushing behaviour of estuaries; and seasonal movements of highly migratory species. It may be of course that successful modelling of such processes is only possible at scales considerably larger than the CAMRIS target scale of 1:1 million. 3.4. Towards a multi-agency system 3.4.1. Why? CAMRIS, as noted earlier, is being developed in collaboration with the Environmental Resources Information Network in the Commonwealth Department of the Environment, and the Coastal Geoscience Unit in the Australian Geological Survey Organisation. The Environmental Resources Information Network is itself developing a spatially referenced National Marine Information System (NatMIS) as a core component of a national ocean conservation project (Ocean Rescue 2000) within the Australian Government Department of Environment. The NatMIS system is intended to assist in planning the national and sustainable use of Australia's coasts and oceans, and will assist in monitoring the 'health' and biodiversity of our marine environments. 39 Collaboration between the CAMRIS and NatMIS projects began

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with the two agencies sharing and adding value to the National Estuaries Study,4° a database and non-topological mapbase describing major habitats and geomorphic structures for about 800 major estuaries. Current collaboration focuses on the biogeophysical regionalisation of the Australian marine realm for conservation planning. The Coastal Geoscience Unit of the Australian Geological Survey Organisation has a research brief to systemise understanding of Australia's coastal physical processes in a way that facilitates management of natural hazards and other changes in the coastal zone. Collaboration between the Australian Geological Survey Organisation and the Division of Wildlife and Ecology concentrates on linking the specialist process knowledge in the Coastal Geoscience Unit with the geographic analysis skills in the Division's natural resource management program. This collaboration between three agencies is a pointer to what is needed, albeit in a grander way. There is a pressing need to coordinate collection of, and improve access to, geocoded marine and coastal resource data in Australia. A large number of organisations is active in marine data acquisition or modelling. Even though most have narrowlyfocused activities, either geographically or in disciplinary terms, nearly all would benefit from extramural collaboration. While collaboration always has a transaction cost, the benefits can include better data, better analytical methods and a better contextual appreciation of one's own work. The US Government's Federal Geographic Data Committee's Manual of Federal Geographic Data Products41 is an excellent example of what can be achieved. It would be a useful step towards comprehensive collaboration if the Commonwealth agencies could start actively collaborating. The recent formation, within an interdepartmental Commonwealth Spatial Data Committee, of a marine (or maritime) spatial data working group creates an opportunity to do this. Once operating, this group could act as a gateway for State-Commonwealth collaboration in marine data matters. Initial matters for progression by such a working group might include data dictionaries, bartering opportunities, data acquisition priorities, data transfer standards, joint data projects, common use of standard data sets such as the Australian Land and Survey Information Group 1:100000 coastline, liaison with States, etc. One very substantial achievement would be an agreement to form a consortium of collaborators to develop a national maritime spatial analysis system or national coastal and marine information system, and to bid jointly for funding to hasten its development.

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3.5. Scoping a national coastal and marine information system

This paper is the place for only a few first thoughts on scoping a multi-agency project to set up a national coastal and marine information system. One basic preliminary would be a review of comparable overseas initiatives. 9 3.5.1. Objectives

Firstly, a duality of objectives for a national marine and coastal information system must be recognised. On one hand, it should provide an information infrastructure which facilitates distributed access to disparate data sets held in a wide range of collaborating custodial agencies. The objective here (objective 1) would be to support existing and future projects focused at State, regional or local scale. On the other hand, a national coastal and marine information system must also provide useful support for national-scale analyses (objective 2). This is of course the idea behind CAMRIS. The key difference from CAMRIS is that a properly funded multi-agency national marine and coastal information system would be better able to contemplate acquiring primary and secondary data at a resolution and coverage likely to be useful for regional and local projects as well as more useful at the national scale than currently available data. 3.5.2. Tasks Tasks referred to a national coastal and marine information system will be issue-driven and will depend on the perceptions that policy and management personnel have of whether and how a national coastal and marine information system might help in particular situations. While such demands cannot be foreseen in detail, it can be suggested that they will largely fall within the span of issues identified in Appendix B as relevant to CAMRIS. Whether planning on such an assumption is appropriate will need debate. Big tasks with a long lead time are particularly important for fostering a growing capability in policy and management support systems. While being able to respond quickly to crisis demands is essential, such activity seldom leaves the system better equipped to meet the next crisis. For this reason, the first Australian State of the Marine Environment report recently prepared under the Department of the Environment's Ocean Rescue 2000 program is opportune. While this first report is necessarily fairly general (L. Zann, personal communication, 1994), it identifies the types of indicators which, region-by-region, will need to

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be repeatedly quantified in future such reports. Provision can then be made for systematically and regularly acquiring the new primary data needed to make future reports legitimate. 3.5.3. Data standards A national coastal and marine information system initiative could provide the stimulus to implement national standards for collecting, managing and exchanging maritime data across Commonwealth and State programs. Commonwealth funding could serve as the stimulus to encourage use of the new Australian Spatial Data Transfer Standard, i.e. through contractual arrangements with various State and Commonwealth agencies. Some aspects of spatial data transfer standards and the responsibilities of custodianship require particular attention to facilitate the inter-agency flow of information. Also, existing spatial data transfer standards used by international hydrographic organisations, and hence the Australian Oceanographic Data Centre, may need to be rationalised in relation to the new Australian Spatial Data Transfer Standard. 3.5.4. Data acquisition strategy Two starting perceptions for developing a data acquisition strategy for a national coastal and marine information system are (i) primary data acquisition is expensive and (ii) there are both fundamental (widely needed) and issue-specific deficiencies in the available data. If funding for a national coastal and marine information system initiative becomes available, something like a multi-agency panel of experts will be needed to identify, prioritise and manage joint data acquisition projects. It does not pre-empt the work of such a panel to observe that the CAMRIS experience suggests the fundamental importance and current poor quality of: • • •

nearshore bathymetry, near coastline elevation data; substrate data, particularly nearshore but also for the whole marine estate; and nearshore and oceanic distribution data for species, functional groups of species and ecosystems.

Not all targeted data have to be collected afresh. For example, considerable numbers of specimens of marine species are held in Commonwealth, State, Territory and overseas museums and herbaria. Offshore marine specimens tend to be better geocoded than terrestrial specimens simply because collecting vessels need to know their location. The value of knowing where a highly mobile organism was at any particular time may of course be limited. The various curators of fishes

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in Australian museums have, for some years, been managing their collections on a nationally integrated basis. This initiative is currently unmatched in other areas of biological collections and suggests a relatively inexpensive contribution to filling a major data gap. The size of the Australian maritime estate and the cost of field data acquisition mean that further research into the improvement of remote sensing techniques has to be assessed as a component of any data acquisition strategy. A starting point for comprehensively mapping biota distributions might be through the use of Coastal Zone Colour Scanner (or other) imagery to map chlorophyll concentrations and hence, indicatively, phytoplankton. Satellite-borne instruments specifically designed to capture information on the oceanic environment (e.g. SeaWlFS) may soon prove invaluable in this area.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Drafts of this document have been extensively circulated within the Australian coastal and marine science community and bureaucracy. Many thanks to all those (too numerous to name) who commented. Contributions to the CAMRIS project are being made by many people. We are particularly grateful to Hugh Kirkman, CSIRO Division of Fisheries; Greg Bowman and Warwick McDonald, CSIRO Division of Soils; Wayne Slater and John Busby, Environmental Resources Information Network; John Finnigan, CSIRO Centre for Environmental Mechanics; Colin Simpson and Bob Burne, Australian Geological Survey Organisation. Technical support comes from Nina Wood, Jenny Clark and Paul Brugrnan. Other valued supporters and collaborators include Ben Searle, Australian Oceanographic Data Centre; Colin Steele, ex Department of Environment; Don Hough, Victorian Land Conservation Council, and countless others.

REFERENCES 1. Wilson, B. R. & Allen, G. R., Major components and distribution of marine fauna. In Fauna of Australia, Volume 1A: General Articles, ed. G. R. Dyne. Australian Government Publishing Service, 1987. 2. Thom, B. G. (ed.), Coastal Geomorphology in Australia. Academic Press, Sydney, 1984. 3. McDonald, W. S., Cocks, K. D., Wood, N. H., Ive, S. R. & Yapp, G. A., The future population of Australia's coastal lands. Australian Geographical Studies, 31(2) (1993) 177-188.

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4. Review Committee on Marine Industries, Science and Technology, Oceans of Wealth? Department of Industry, Technology and Commerce, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1989. 5. House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment, Recreation and the Arts (HORSCERA), Inquiry into Protection of the Coastal Environment. Discussion Paper. Australian Govenrment Publishing Service, Canberra, 1990. 6. Resource Assessment Commission, Coastal Zone Inquiry, Final Report. Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1993, 519 pp. 7. Smith, H. D. & Lalwani, C. S., The North Sea: Sea Use Management and Planning. North Sea Research Unit, UWlST, 1984. 8. Bergin, A., Aboriginal sea claims in the Northern Territory of Australia. Ocean and Shoreline Management, 15 (1991) 171-204. 9. Abel, D., Cocks, K. D. & McDonald, W. S., Requirements for a National Marine Information System for the Environmental Resources Information Network. A consultancy for Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service by CSIRO Division of Information Technology and CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology, 1992. 10. Searle, B., The HydroComp system: Oceanographic information management in the RAN Hydrographic Service. Probe, 18 (1992) 10-12. 11. Kailola, P. L, Williams, M. L, Stewart, P. C., Reichelt, R. E., McNee, A. & Grieve, C., Australian Fisheries Resources. Bureau of Resource Sciences and the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, Canberra, 1993. 12. Last, P. R. & Stevens, J. D., Sharks and Rays of Australia. CSIRO, Australia, 1994. 13. McCracken, K. G. & Kingwell, J. (ed.), Marine and Coastal Remote Sensing in the Australian Tropics. Office of Space Science and Applications, CSIRO, Canberra, 1988. 14. Bierwirth, P. N., Lee, T. & Burne, R. V., Unmixing of shallow sea-floor reflectance and water depth using multispectral imagery. In Conference Proceedings 'Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System for Coastal Catchment Management'. Centre for Coastal Management and Greening Australia Ltd, Lismore, NSW, 1991. 15. Cocks, K. D., Walker, P. A. & Parvey, C. A., Evolution of a continental scale geographic information system. International Journal of Geographic Information Systems, 2(3) (1988) 263-280. 16. Galloway, R. W., Storey, R., Cooper, R. & Yapp, G. A., Coastal Lands of Australia. CSIRO Division of Water and Land Resources, Natural Resources Series No. 1, 1984. 17. Yapp, G. A., Wood, N. H. & Cocks, K. D., Coastal Population Data (1971-1986) in the Australian Resources Information System. CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology, Canberra, Working Document 91/2, 1991. 18. Booth, T. H., Wood, N. H. & Cocks, K. D., Climate Data for Coastal Gridcells in the Australian Resources Information System. CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology, Canberra, Working Document 88/2, 1988. 19. Wood, N. H. & Cocks, K. D., Coastal Data Sets in the Australian Resources Information System. CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology, Canberra, Working Document 90/10, second edition, 1990.

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20. Belbin, L., P A T N Reference Manual. CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology, Canberra, 1987, 353 pp. 21. Ive, J. R., LUPIS: computer assistance for land use allocation. Resource Technology 92 Taipi: Information Technology for Environmental Management. Taiwan, November 1992. 22. Cocks, K. D. & Walker, P. A., Using the Australian Resources Information System to describe extensive regions. Applied Geography, 7(1) (1987) 17-27. 23. Cocks, K. D., A systematic method of public use zoning of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, Australia. Coastal Zone Management Journal, 12(4) (1984) 324-359. 24. Cocks, K. D. & Crossland, C., The Australian Coastal Zone: a Discussion Paper. CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology, Canberra, Resource Allocation Program Working Document 91/4, 1991. 25. Kelleher, G. & Kenchington, R. A., Guidelines for Establishing Marine Protected Areas. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Townsville, 1991. 26. Ray, G. C. & McCormick-Ray, G., Marine and Estuarine Protected Areas: a Strategy for a National Representative System Within Australian Coastal and Marine Environments. Consultancy Report. Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, Canberra, 1992, 52 pp. 27. Yurick, D. B., Development of Marine Protected Area system planning regional frameworks in Canada. Marine Biogeographic Regionalisation Workshop, Sydney, March 1994. Australia and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council, 1994. 28. Christian, C. S., Stewart, G. A. & Perry, R. A., Land research in northern Australia. Australian Geographer, 7(6) (1960) 217-231. 29. CONCOM, Summary Report of the Second Technical Workshop on Selection and Management of Marine and Estuarine Protected Areas. Canberra College of Advanced Education, Jervis Bay Field Station. Council of Nature Conservation Ministers, Canberra, 1985. 30. GESAMP, The state of the marine environment. UNEP Regional Seas Reports and Studies. UNEP, 1990, No. 115. 31. Clark, L., Coastal Ecosystem Management---a Technical Manual for the Conservation of Coastal Zone Resources. Wiley Interscience, 1977. 32. Davis, J. R., Nanninga, P. M., Biggins, L. & Laut, P., Prototype decision support system for analysing impacts of catchment policies. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 117(4) (1991) 399-414. 33. Weyl, P. K., Pollution susceptibility: an environmental parameter for coastal zone management. Coastal Zone Management Journal, 2(4) (1976) 327-343. 34. Cocks, K. D., Use with Care: Managing Australia's Natural Resources in the 21st Century. University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 1992, 340 pp. 35. Cocks, K. D., Gilmour, A. L. & Wood, N. H., Regional impacts of rising sealevels in coastal Australia. In Greenhouse: Planning for Climatic Change, ed. G. I. Pearman. E. J. Brill Publishing Co., Leiden, 1988. 36. Gornitz, V. & Kanciruk, P., Assessment of global coastal hazards from sea level rise, Coastal Zone 89, Proceedings of the Sixth Symposium on Coastal

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41. 42.

43.

44.

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and Ocean Management. ASCE, Charleston, South Carolina, 1989, pp. 1345-1359. Reid, W. V. & Trexler, M. C., Responding to potential impacts of climatic change on US coastal biodiversity. Coastal Management, 20(2) (1992) 117-142. Lin, C. & Melville, M. D., Mangrove soil: A potential contamination source to estuarine ecosystems in Australia. Wetlands (Australia), U (1992) 68-75. Slater, W., National Marine Information System. Erineyes Newsletter, Department of Environment, Sport and Territories, 1983, No. 16, March. Bucher, D. & Saenger, P., An Inventory of Australian Estuaries and Enclosed Marine Waters. Prepared for the Australian Recreational and Sports Fishing Federation and Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, Centre for Coastal Management Lismore, NSW, 1989, 7 volumes, summary report and computer database. FGDC, Manual of Federal Geographic Data Products. Federal Geographic Data Committee, US Environmental Protection Agency, 1992. Paijmans, K., Galloway, R. W., Faith, D. P., Fleming, P. M., Haantjens, H. A., Heyligers, P. C., Klama, J. D. & Loetiler, E., Aspects of Australian Wetlands. Division of Water and Land Resources Technical Paper No. 39, CSIRO, Australia, 1985. Northcote, K. H., Beckmann, G. G., Bettenay, E., Churchward, H., van Dijk, D., Dimmock, G., Hubble, G., Isbell, R., McArthur, W., Murtha, G., Nicholls, K., Paton, T., Thompson, C., Webb, A. & Wright, M., Atlas of Australian Soils. CSIRO and University of Melbourne Press, 19601968, Sheets 1-10, with explanatory booklets. Finlayson, B. L. & McMahon, T. A., Australia vs. the World: a comparative analysis of streamflow characteristics. In Fluvial Geomorphology in Australia, ed. R. F. Warner. Academic Press, Sydney, 1988.

APPENDIX A Data sets in CAMRIS

1. Coastal A R I S 'Coastal ARIS' represents the outcome of many years work by CSIRO scientists mapping vegetation, geology, landforms, coastline type, and land use. It has recently been supplemented with climatic and population data. There are two fundamental data types: sections and points. Section data comprise 3027 sections, each 10 km long and 3 km (or as far inland as Holocene deposits) wide, around the coast of Australia. Attributes include shoreline characteristics, geology, landforms, and vegetation. Point data comprise 41 721 individual points, approximately

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one per 3km 2, each attributed with detailed vegetation, lithology, geomorphology, and land use. The maps for Coastal ARIS have been digitised, so full spatial analysis is able to be undertaken on this data set. 2. Coastline

The AUSLIG 1:100000 coastline file is used in CAMRIS. Also included is the AFZ fishing zone boundary. 3. Bathymetry

CAMRIS has acquired digital versions of the Australian 1:250000 series bathymetric charts. This is a fundamental dataset for any marine management system. 4. Drainage basins and river networks

Coastal drainage basins, from the Australian Water Resources Council, have been digitised. The best available consistent continental drainage network is incorporated into CAMRIS. 5. Oceanography

Oceanographic data collected to date include time series of sea surface temperature and salinity/dissolved oxygen profiles, together with a variety of geophysical records including gravity, magnetics, and seismic track lines. Much of the data has been acquired from NOAA, and CSIRO Divisions in Australia. 6. Substrates

Substrate maps for the continental shelf and slope have been acquired from the Ocean Sciences Institute at the University of Sydney, and digitized. A more extensive exercise underway at present is to create polygon coverages of fundamental sediment attributes (texture, composition) from existing maps, and also to collate all available point sample data from published and unpublished sources. CAMRIS also contains nearshore sediment mapping, produced by the CSIRO Division of Fisheries, derived from remote sensing, aerial photographs, and diving, for about one third of the continent. 7. Estuaries

CAMRIS incorporates the Australian estuarine database, which includes the inventory of Australian estuaries by Bucher & Saenger. 4°

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Attributes include location, name, climatic variables, run-off coefficients, land use, flood frequency, water quality, habitat types including seagrass and mangroves by species, fisheries/ conservation/amenity values, administration, literature, threats, etc.

8. Wetlands Several wetlands data sets have been included in CAMRIS. That prepared by Paijmans et al. 42 is regarded as the most accurate. This information is coded to correspond with the Galloway coastal sections. 9. Climate Coastal climatic variables included are a variety of standard temperature and rainfall parameters. These are coded to the Galloway sections. 10. Soils The Northcote soils atlas is used. 43 11. Geology and geotechnics The digital geological map of Australia is used. 12. Topography The 2.5 km grid data set of spot heights has been obtained for use in CAMRIS. 13. Gazetteer The AUSLIG Gazetteer was obtained for use with CAMRIS. 14. Vegetation ERIN have provided access to 1788 and 1988 vegetation maps for research. 15. River hydrographs A database of mean annual flows for all significant streams, and some hydrographs have been obtained? 4 16. Mineral deposits The MINLOC deposit occurrence database was purchased and has been incorporated into CAMRIS. A database of offshore and coastal deposits, including manganese nodules, phosphates, and marine placers, has been purchased from the USA.

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17. Waves A database of shallow water long term wave rider records is essentially complete, and will be incorporated into CAMRIS in the near future. This will provide a fundamental component of the physical process model to be used by CAMRIS. 18. Tides The tidal data, from the Australian National Tidal Tables, have been entered into CAMRIS, and are also a fundamental part of the process model. The National Tidal Facility, situated at Flinders University, South Australia, holds data from all tide gauging stations in the Australian region. A sub-network of precision sea-level monitoring stations is being established to feed baseline data into the existing tide gauge network, in part to support monitoring of global change impacts. 19. Winds Coastal winds have been modelled by Dr G. Laughlin around Australia. This information is digitised, and will be used as part of the CAMRIS coastal process model. 20. Cyclones All cyclone information collected by the Bureau of Meteorology from 1908 to 1990 has been acquired, and again forms a core component of the CAMRIS coastal process data system. 21. Storm surge A number of storm surge models for the Australian coast has been developed. A combination of these forms part of the CAMRIS physical process model. 22. Storms A database of storms in ocean regions has been acquired from NOAA, for inclusion into the CAMRIS process model. 23. Seagrasses A unique Australia-wide coverage of seagrass distribution has been developed with the CSIRO Division of Fisheries. It is digitised for inclusion into CAMRIS.

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24. Petroleum titles and sedimentary basins The petroleum titles coverage has been acquired for CAMRIS. 25. M P A s The most up to date MPA database has been obtained from ERIN as part of a collaborative research agreement. 26. Beaches Information about Australia's beaches is available from two sources: the Coastal Studies Unit at the University of Sydney, and the Surf Riders Foundation. Data from these organisations supplement each other, and provide the most comprehensive coverage in Australia. 27. Population Five consecutive census data sets (1971-1991, by collectors' district) have been tied to CAMRIS, and are being updated as each successive census is released. 28. Regionalisations A variety of physical regionalisations has been included into CAMRIS, in an effort to provide some spatial frame for the information. 29. Birds As part of a collaborative research agreement with the Royal Australian Ornithologists Union, CAMRIS has obtained the RAOU digital atlas of birds in Australia. 30. Dune vegetation CAMRIS has drawn on the long history of coastal vegetation mapping within the Division of Wildlife and Ecology to produce a coverage of dune plants and associations around the temperate parts of Australia. 31. Pollution CAMRIS is at present collecting data from state, Commonwealth and local government, and industry sources, about all significant sources of land-based marine pollution. This unique database will be complete in about 6 months.

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Coastal zone issues and candidate policy positions 1. Issue 1 Protection and utilisation of major coastal ecosystems including coral reef systems, seagrasses, kelp beds and mangroves. 1.1. Policy As far as possible, protect or conservatively utilise all occurrences of major coastal ecosystems. 1.2. Primary analysis task Map all occurrences of major coastal ecosystems.

2. Issue 2 Coordination and rationalisation of activities of government agencies with responsibilities in the coastal zone. 2.1. Policy As far as possible, ensure that coastal zone activities take place within the framework of a state-wide coastal zone m a n a g e m e n t plan.

3. Issue 3 Allocation and m a n a g e m e n t of coastal zone areas with high conservation a n d / o r use values. 3.1. Policy As far as possible, ensure that areas of high conservation value are protected and that areas of high use value are m a d e available to user groups. 4. Issue 4 Pollution in the coastal zone. 4.1. Policy As far as possible, ensure that major pollution sources and sinks are identified and then managed to minimise pollution levels, particularly in areas of high conservation a n d / o r use value.

5. Issue 5 Coastal surveillance for defence, customs and quarantine purposes.

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5.1. Policy As far as possible, identify and monitor coastal areas regarded as important under a 'risk management' approach to coastal surveillance.

6. Issue 6 Designation and management of marine and estuarine protected areas. 6.1. Policy As far as possible, include all areas regarded as moderately to highly suitable for this purpose in a coordinated reserve system.

7. Issue 7 Identification, planning and management of offshore areas, from near-coastal to the Australian Fishing Zone (AFZ). 7.1. Policy As far as possible, identify major potential demands on the A F Z and attempt to make attractive areas available to satisfy those demands; alternatively, attempt to ensure that such areas a r e not sterilised by dedication to a pre-emptive use.

8. Issue 8 Demographic pressure on the coastal zone, including the size and location of coastal settlements. 8.1. Policy As far as possible, restrict urbanisation to existing settlements and minimise longshore expansion of existing settlements.

9. Issue 9 Tourism and recreation in the coastal zone. 9.1. Policy As far as possible, ensure that the full recreation and tourism carrying capacity of the coastal zone is exploited but not over-exploited. 10. Issue 10 Species conservation in the coastal zone. 10.1. Policy As far as possible, identify and locate rare and/or endangered coastal species and develop management plans for their protection.

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11. Issue 11 Public and private interests in the coastal zone. 11.1. Policy As far as possible, decisions on the allocation of coastal resources should balance public and private interests. 12. Issue 12 Risk management in the coastal zone. 12.1. Policy As far as possible, locate coastal activities so as to minimise the risk of major damage from natural disasters. 13. Issue 13 Fisheries management. 13.1. Policy As far as possible, identify sustainable yields for major fisheries and develop management plans for ensuring conformity to these. 14. Issue 14 Prospects for mariculture. 14.1. Policy As far as possible, identify prospective maricultural industries and potential sites for these industries and take action to ensure their continuing availability for maricultural purposes. 15. Issue 15 Degradation of coastal wetlands and coastal landforms. 15.1. Policy As far as possible, identify wetlands and landforms suffering significant actual or potential degradation, and options for slowing or ameliorating such degradation. 16. Issue 16 Mining in the coastal zone and offshore. 16.1. Policy As far as possible, prospective areas for mining should remain available for that purpose. 17. Issue 17 Infrastructure, industry and engineering practice in the coastal zone.

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17.1. Policy As far as possible, infrastructure in the coastal zone should be designed to minimise ecosystem disturbance as well as carrying out its intended function. 18. Issue 18 Appropriate technologies for coastal zone activities. 18.1. Policy As far as possible, technologies selected for implementing coastal activities should be environmentally benign. 19. Issue 19 Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedures for coastal development proposals. 19.1. Policy As far as possible, all coastal development proposals should be subjected to an EIA process which is sensitive to a wide range of social and environmental impacts and to the regional context of the proposal. 20. Issue 20 Impact of climatic change. 20.1. Policy As far as possible, coastal areas likely to suffer major impacts under climatic change should be identified and options for their management developed.