The attention of many coastal resource managers is often focused on the coastline and the numerous challenges that are found on the land side of the coastal zone. Many of the issues that coastal managers address, however, don't stop at the land's edge.
Fiber-optic cables, for instance, stretch over land, the territorial sea, and into the ocean's depths. Oil spills can drift into sensitive coastal habitat, and poor water quality can shut down public beaches. An ever growing number of ocean-related issues are presenting coastal managers with unique jurisdictional and legal challenges.
To ensure the state would have a seat at relevant decision-making tables, Oregon has created a vibrant ocean resource management program. In the cover story of this edition of Coastal Services, we examine not only how Oregon addresses ocean management, but the steps the state has taken to bring the program to fruition.
As ocean management becomes a higher priority for state coastal programs, geospatial technology, such as geographic information systems (GIS), the Global Positioning System (GPS), remote sensing, and the Internet, will provide more and more tools that aid in the creation of ocean policy.
An example of this is OPIS, or the Ocean Planning Information System, which was developed by the NOAA Coastal Services Center in partnership with North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
OPIS was the first attempt in the U.S. to create a regional, multistate information system for the coastal ocean. It provides regional georeferenced regulatory and environmental spatial data critical to timely, integrated decision making and analysis. To view OPIS, point your browser to www.csc.noaa.gov/opis/.
Many of the ocean and coastal management uses of geospatial technology also are being explored at Coastal GeoTools '03, held January 6 through 9, 2003, in Charleston, South Carolina. Proceedings of the meeting will be available by going to www.csc.noaa.gov/clearinghouse/ and filling out the product request form.
We hope that you will find all of this information valuable in your ocean and coastal management efforts.
-- Margaret A. Davidson
