Coastal Informatics: Web Atlas Design and Implementation

The purpose of the book is to present the latest developments in the new field of coastal web atlases and to share best practices and lessons learned, which will in turn help readers to determine future needs in mapping and informatics for the coastal practitioner community and improve spatial thinking in the coastal context. This handbook provides a complete guide to CWA development and implementation including established principles and recommendations for atlas design, data requirements, necessary software technology and institutional capacity, as well as best practices for achieving interoperability between CWAs (where concepts, terminology, and even abbreviations that are shared between two or more atlases are understood by all to mean the same thing). The prime audience for the handbook includes coastal resource managers and consultants, coastal scientists, coastal technologists (e.g., information technologists, GIS specialists, software developers), government researchers, and graduate students. The handbook should be especially valuable to coastal resource managers who need to tackle such topic-based issues (explaining environmental concepts to the public and reaching them with current information has always been a difficult task). It may also be suitable for intermediate, advanced courses in coastal/marine GIS or coastal zone management (i.e., courses toward a related B.Sc., M.Sc. or Ph.D. degree, in the classroom, but also potentially for distance education as well).