INTEGRATING THE SHORELINE INTO SPATIAL POLICIES IGN France International Isle of Wight Council University of Szczecin Community of Agglomeration for the Thau Basin Municipality of Rewal August 2006 Project part-financed by the European Union (European Regional Development Fund) within the INTERREG IIIC Programme MESSINA Practical Guide Integrating the Shoreline into Spatial Policies The MESSINA initiative The intensification of population migration towards the coast and increased frequency of coastal hazards due to global climate change have lead coastal managers at the local level to pay a particular attention to coastal dynamics and shoreline evolution. But in spite of major efforts invested and knowledge accumulated in the fields of shoreline management, lessons learned from European, national and regional initiatives have been so far poorly embedded in daily coastal management practices. The MESSINA initiative - Managing European Shoreline and Sharing Information on Nearshore Areas - intends to partly bridge this gap by: (i) breaking "knowledge isolation" of some local authorities and institutions in Europe, (ii) raising their managerial and technical capabilities through a mutualisation of the experience accumulated by each of them, and (iii) upgrading existing shoreline management guidelines through an integration of the latest techniques and methods available in Europe. The main products expected from MESSINA are: (i) a "coastal manager toolkit" made of 4 practical guides ("Monitoring and modelling the shoreline", "Valuating the shoreline", "Engineering the shoreline", "Integrating the shoreline into spatial planning policies") and a demo CDROM featuring a GIS-based prototype of shoreline management planning, (ii) a serie of 4 workshops in line with the topic of each practical guide, and (iii) a web site giving a full online access to the project outputs and to a database of approximately 50 shoreline management case studies. The overall objective of MESSINA is ultimately to maximize the benefits of future investments in coastline management and raise the public awareness about the need to manage the coastline in a sound and sustainable way. MESSINA is proposed by a European consortium made of the French Geographic Institute (IGN), the National Institute of Coastal and Marine Management of the Dutch Ministry of Public Works (RIKZ), the Municipalities of Ystad (Sweden) and Rewal (Poland), the Community of Agglomeration for the Thau Basin including the city of Sète (France), the Isle of Wight Council (UK), the Province of Ragusa (Italy), the Swedish Geotechnical Institute (SGI) and the Universities of Messina, Naples (Italy), Barcelona (Spain), and Szczeczin (Poland). i MESSINA Practical Guide Integrating the Shoreline into Spatial Policies The Practical Guide “Integrating the shoreline into spatial policies” provides a synthesis of the results of MESSINA partners' activity devoted to the prototyping of Coastal Geographic Information Systems (GIS) on three coastal sites in Europe. It is intended to help local stakeholders and coastal engineers willing to implement a coastal GIS dedicated to shoreline management with a set of methodologies, tools, best solutions described with their context, cost and limitations. The Practical Guide Integrating the Shoreline into Spatial Policies, as part of the MESSINA Coastal Toolkit, will contain the following main chapters: Section I – Introduction Section II – Recommendations for GIS technologies dedicated to Shoreline Management Section III – Guidelines for Coastal GIS integration Section IV – Experiences on implementing coastal GIS Section V – Conclusions Glossary of terms and abbreviations References ii MESSINA Practical Guide Integrating the Shoreline into Spatial Policies SECTION I - INTRODUCTION This guideline has been prepared in the framework of the MESSINA project part- funded by the INTERREG III C West Zone programme. It aims at adapting the guidelines developed in the framework of EUROSION to the particular purposes of MESSINA. These guidelines should help regional authorities and local managers willing to make a major contribution to coastal erosion management and coastal information sharing for spatial planning policies. The EUROSION study has reviewed a number of European experiences of shoreline management in which GIS played a particular role. Based on these experiences this study has formulated broad recommendations on the “ideal” specifications for GIS dedicated to coastline management. The objective of MESSINA is to take forward some of these recommendations and see how they can practically be implemented to answer the needs expressed by MESSINA partners. In turn, the outcomes of MESSINA are expected to be further developed and refined within other European regions. EUROSION has particularly highlighted that the objectives which are assigned to an information system, hence its functions, are central for its sustainability and should be in line with demands formulated at the highest level of management (for example by the mayor). In too many cases, the design of information systems is technology driven and without an explicit design brief and support from the top management, this often results in the information system being abandoned after a few years of operation. EUROSION has identified three generic objectives which are proposed to constitute the backbone of GIS dedicated to shoreline management. These are: - The mapping of areas at risk of coastal erosion and coastal flooding - The assessment of impact of human activities to shoreline stability - The balance of costs and benefits associated with different shoreline management scenarios These three generic aims are expected to reflect at least, if not all, the major part of shoreline management questions asked by decision-makers on a daily basis. MESSINA agrees on this analysis and intends to translate this into practical achievements. However, while EUROSION provisions are expected to be applicable to any European region, MESSINA will complete EUROSION analysis by assessing the feasibility of their implementation and determining which site-specific factors influence the performance of the system. A high priority among these factors are the availability of local input data, the complexity of local coastal processes and local institutional arrangements. The objective of these guidelines is to provide general advice on how to address the potential needs of geographical information for shoreline management at a local level, and how to render this geographical information not only useful but also Section I 1 MESSINA Practical Guide Integrating the Shoreline into Spatial Policies efficient for day-to-day problematic of shoreline management as well as projects, plans or programmes on coastal erosion processes. MESSINA intends to build upon the recommendations of the EUROSION project in the field of shoreline information management. These recommendations can be summarized as follows: - Investment decisions relating to shoreline management should be based on information which is not restricted to the investment area only, but on information which is made available for the entire coastal sediment cell. Experience gained from EUROSION study has indeed demonstrated that activities occurring along the same coastal sediment cell are likely to impact other parts of the cell, while activities which take place in different coastal sediment cells are not likely to interfere from a sediment budget point of view. The accurate delineation of coastal sediment cell boundaries is therefore a pre-requisite to any GIS-based decision-support information tools. - GIS-based decision-support information tools in the fields of shoreline management should fulfil three main functions: (i) the mapping of coastal erosion and associated flood risk areas, (ii) the balance of cost and benefits of future investment decisions, and (iii) the assessment of potential environmental impact of investment decisions on adjacent areas. These core functions should in turn orient data collection and integration efforts. - GIS-based information tools should be developed in partnership with the various local data providers. This is meant to avoid duplication of efforts, facilitate access to existing up-to-date data, and improve the updating processes. The willingness to design, develop and implement such tools should be manifested at the highest hierarchical level by all the participating institutions. Political leadership possibly from the regional authority, is a key pre-requisite. Three potential sites were proposed for testing MESSINA GIS concepts and therefore concreting a prototype which will comply with the three above mentioned recommendations. All of which are in the process of developing a GIS competence to support decision-making. More particularly: (i) The Côte d’Albâtre (French region of Haute-Normandy) where the regional council of Haute-Normandie and the departmental council of Seine- Maritime were planning to implement a coastal observatory. Among the goals assigned to this observatory are the monitoring of the coastline evolution and the assessment of areas at risk of coastal landslides which are of high importance. (ii) The City of Rewal (Polish region of Zachodniopomorskie) on the Eastern part of the Szczecin Lagoon near Dziwnow has been hosting a GIS developed by the University of Szczecin for several years. This GIS features various layers mainly focused on topography and socio- economical aspects of the city. MESSINA intends to adapt