Background

On a daily basis many environmental managers and decision makers are confronted with an issue which severely limits their ability to operate effectively, that is, they have a lack of detailed knowledge about the resources they are trying to conserve, protect and manage sustainably. Better knowledge of an environmental resource including its health status, regional and local trends, stress factors and vulnerabilities all lead to better decision making, a truly integrated approach to management, and thus vastly more effective resource conservation.

Thus it becomes apparent that for an integrated approach to coastal management, data is the key. Indeed within the policy cycle of ICAM (planning, implementation, outcome, monitoring, evaluation), data plays a critical role at each stage. It is the collection, management, analysis and dissemination of this data that is the major challenge of the integrated management approach, especially in the Wider Caribbean Region given our limited financial and human resources. However, new and recent technologies such as distributed databases, affordable GIS solutions, and online mapping applications hold the promise of more effective data sharing, archiving, location, interpretation, visualisation and communication to decision makers and the general public. Therefore the development of these systems and supporting infrastructure at both a local and regional level is a top priority if improved sustainable resource management is to be achieved.

In the Caribbean, although often regarded as externalities, environmental and particularly coastal natural resources continue to be the most important socioeconomic agents fuelling national growth for small island states in areas such as tourism and offshore investment. In addition, the management issues such as food security, natural hazards and even climate change adaptation are all heavily dependent on how we manage our coastal and marine resources. And it is only when we harness the full predictive and descriptive power of environmental data through mechanisms which make environmentally themed datasets more open, easier to access and as a result more available for interpretation in a socioeconomic context, that we can ensure sound and sustainable development in the Caribbean Region.

The purpose of the Caribbean Marine Atlas (CMA) is to identify, collect and organize available spatial datasets into an atlas of environmental themes for the Caribbean region, under the sponsorship of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission's (IOC) International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) and Integrated Coastal Area Management (ICAM) Programmes. The CMA will, through its products and services available at the national and regional levels, contribute to the sustainable development and integrated management of marine and coastal areas in the region. The project also stimulates regional capacity in areas such as spatial data management, web development and data product delivery.

Data Layers

The data layers for the Atlas will be:

• Regional Scale Data Layers - These layers cover the complete Atlas area of interest.
• National/Local Scale Data Layers - These layers cover specific countries in the Caribbean. It will be the responsibility of the participating countries to collect and organize data. Some of the data themes that will be included will be provided as "virtual" datasets.
• Virtual Data Layers - These layers will be provided as links to online web map servers (WMS) or web feature servers (WFS) that produce dynamic maps that can be integrated into the Atlas.

Features of the Atlas

The CMA will be a digital atlas comprising easily downloadable data on various key themes relevant to the marine and coastal environment of the Caribbean. Among these themes are coastal habitats, fisheries, environmental quality, climate change and sea level rise, oceanography, as well as socio-economic aspects. The Atlas will also contain dataset descriptions (metadata) and links to the source data. It is intended both to provide necessary datasets directly to concerned scientists, coastal zone management practitioners, and natural resource managers, and will set the stage for the development of decision-makers' toolkits that rely on geo-spatial information.

The CMA will play an important role in informing decision-makers on issues relating to the marine and coastal environment and it is envisaged the Atlas will become the main entry point for anyone interested in finding information on the coastal and marine environment of the Caribbean.

The development of the CMA will also provide a tool to assist community building and collaboration in the region. It will draw on national human resources to identify issues of concern, define appropriate indicators and locate datasets that can be used in the atlas. In addition, data gaps that require additional resources will be identified. As part of the Atlas development, the IODE programme will provide the necessary training to the relevant persons from each country. The CMA will be built using open source technologies and will be based on international standards to enable the sharing of technological knowledge and resources. The Atlas will encourage the wide dissemination of key datasets by providing access and visualization of these data.