Coastal Zone Asia Pacific (CZAP) Marine SDI and Cadastre Activities in Asia-Pacific

Decision-makers in both land and marine related areas of the coastal zone need to access marine related datasets in order to effectively achieve their economic, social and environmental objectives. Therefore, administering the spatial dimension of the marine environment is an important area for research internationally, particularly within the Asia-Pacific region. With this in mind, the Department of Geomatics at the University of Melbourne is involved in a number of national and international collaborative projects with a marine focus. One of the major projects is sponsored by the United Nations supported Permanent Committee on GIS Infrastructure for Asia and the Pacific (PCGIAP). The main objective of this project is to define the issues to be considered in developing a set of guidelines appropriate to the Asia and Pacific region for administrating the marine environment. The Department of Geomatics has also initiated research into problems relevant to the development of an Australian marine cadastre. The current project sponsored by the Australian Research Council focuses on four major research areas including resolving ambiguities in the definition of the tidal interface; using natural rather than artificial boundaries in a marine cadastre; expanding the Australian SDI to support marine dimension; and legal and security issues intrinsic to the development of a marine cadastre. This paper aims to describe both the current and future directions of these activities. This includes an overview of the incentive, objectives, principle tasks and results of current research as well as reporting on the outcomes of the PCGIAP-International Workshop on administering the marine environment held in Malaysia this year.