ISPRS, Vol.34, Part 2W2, “Dynamic and Multi-Dimensional GIS”, Bangkok, May 23-25, 2001 
Currently, most of the modelings adopt a ‘loose-couple approach’ 
(as described by Sui 1998), which use plus-in customer-built 
programs to GIS and use commercial GIS package as data 
management and display. 
D. Navigation and port facilities management 
This type of application has evolved from traditional use of 
nautical maps to routine channel monitoring, maintenance and 
route planning, e.g. NSW Waterway used GIS for waterway 
resource management. They also used GIS along with GPS for 
planning and real time monitoring the events in the 2000 
Olympics water sports (ESRI, 2000). The GIS functions that 
require for these tasks with GPS tracking system network 
analysis and relevant queries functions of the RDBMS. 
E. Coastal Environmental / Hazard assessment: 
There are two subcategories in the application: short-term and 
long-term tasks. The former is exemplified with monitoring and 
predicting oil spilt (Belore, et al., 1990), while the later is 
demonstrated in coastal hazard/vulnerability assessment due to 
climate change (Lee et al., 1992; Deniels, et al., 1996; Hickey, et 
a!., 1997; Zeng and Cowell, 1999; Henneck, et.al., 2000; Esnard 
et al., 2001), as well as assessing potential risk area by septic 
tanks (Swart, 1995) and coastal wetland assessment (Downs, et 
al., 1993). 
This type of application is characterised by model integration, 
linking other coastal model or multi-models with GIS for 
simulating/predicting different scenarios. 
F. Coastal management / strategies planning 
Similar to Type E, this application also involves assessing 
sustainability of environmental system, social and economic 
viability (Post and Lunding, 1994). Some of the examples are: 
a) Fisheries management planning, site selection for 
aquaculture (NSW Fisheries), and Fish closure that convert 
the legislation of Gazette or regulation into the spatial 
contests. 
b) Marine park planning that uses multicriteria analysis to 
investigate the interaction between different factors and 
constrains, and provides solutions to conflict situations. 
c) Aquaculture Industrial Development Plan (see next section) 
G. Coastal ecological modeling 
This is one of the most challenge applications, ranging from 
using Neural Network analysis for identifying boi-regions (Ortiz, 
1994), predict stream habitats and fish diversity (Meixler and 
Bain, 2000) and applying a multi-dimensional GIS analysis to 
track spatial/temporal habitat changes to indicate the quantity of 
stream flow essential for maintaining habitats required by aquatic 
animals (Parham and Fitzsimons, 2000). 
This type of application is focused on integrating ecological 
models with GIS for research of ecological system behavior. 
In summery, to extend Jones’s work (Jones, 1995) all the 
categories of GIS applications in coastal zone is classified as 
three levels, and shown in Table 1: 
Level 1: as data management and mapping tools 
Level 2: as basic data analysis (queries) tool and mapping tools 
Level 3: as a decision-supporting tool 
Table 1. GIS applications in coastal zone. 
Category 
A 
B 
C 
D 
E 
F 
G 
Levett 
Yes 
Yes 
Yes 
Yes 
Yes 
Yes 
Yes 
Level 2 
No 
No 
Yes 
Yes 
Yes 
Yes 
Yes 
mm 
No 
No 
■ 
No 
Most of current Coastal GIS is still at Level 1 and Level 2. It is 
expected that Level 3 will rapidly increase in the near future as 
the continuous improvement in GIS functions and user-friendly 
interface available in the market. 
To demonstrate these three levels of application, an example of 
GIS application in Fisheries is given as follows: 
A case studies of Fisheries GIS 
The outline of Fisheries GIS is given here and the details 
articulated by Zeng et al., (1999). 
The objective of the fisheries is to ensure the appropriate use of 
fisheries resources and conservation of coastal environment. The 
role of the Fisheries GIS is, as a managerial tools and decision 
supporting tools, to assist in the achievement of the cooperative 
goal. All components of fisheries, including routine operation, 
fishery management and aquaculture planning, conservation and 
research, have to incorporate, share datasets and contribute 
value-added datasets for further development. 
Based on the business case, the level of each component has 
been defined and the appropriate GIS functions are selected as 
shown in Table 2. 
Table 2. GIS Functions versus level of applications for Fisheries. 
Level 
Fishery 
Manage 
ment 
Operation 
Aquaculture 
Planning 
Fishery / 
Habitats 
Conser 
vation 
Fishery 
Research 
1 
RDBMS 
Display/ 
Mapping 
RDBMS 
Display/ 
Mapping 
RDBMS 
Display/ 
Mapping 
RDBMS 
Display/ 
Mapping 
2 
Query 
Overlay 
Regional 
analysis 
Query 
Overlay 
Regional 
analysis 
Query 
Overlay 
Regional 
analysis 
Query 
Overlay 
Regional 
analysis 
3 
Random 
sampling 
Multi 
varieties 
analysis 
Fuzzy set 
analysis 
Rule-based 
model 
Multi 
varieties 
analysis 
Fuzzy set 
analysis 
Rule- 
based 
model 
Multi 
varieties 
analysis 
Fuzzy set 
analysis 
Rule- 
based 
model 
Random 
simulation 
The Fisheries GIS system and its usage are illustrated in Fig. 2 
This system support different divisions for difference operation 
purposes, as is given as follows: 
345