EO in Support of Integrated Coastal Zone Management and Marine Spatial Planning

Description

The coastal zones may be thought of as the areas of interface between land and sea, where multiple uses and sometimes overlapping regulatory systems intersect (IOC-UNESCO). Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) is defined as a “dynamic, multi-disciplinary and iterative process to promote sustainable management of coastal zones”, taking into consideration diverse, sometimes competing, elements such as policy, sectors, administrative levels, and terrestrial and marine components of the space (EC, 1999).

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) is a public process of analyzing and allocating the spatial and temporal distribution of human activities in marine area to achieve ecological, economic and social objectives that have been specified through a political process (Ehler and Douvere, 2009). As such, MSP plays an integral role in ICZM through the application of knowledge and Earth observation data from different sectors, to contribute to understanding of coastal zone processes while providing a basis for better management of coastal (and marine) resources.

This session will explore how Earth observations can support ICZM/MSP, through reviewing the concepts and policy drivers, surveying available tools and understanding user requirement inputs, before considering a case study for Egyptian coastal zones.

Session Chair:

Kwame Adu Agyekum - Blue Planet - (Ghana)