Marine and coastal applications of GIS are finally gaining wide acceptance in scientific as well as GIS communities, and cover the fields of deep sea geology, chemistry and biology, and coastal geology, biology, engineering and resource management. Comprising rigorous contributions from a group of leading scholars in marine and coastal GIS, this book will inspire and stimulate continued research in this important new application domain. Launched as a project to mark the UN International Year of the Ocean (1998) and supported by the International Geographical Union's Commission on Coastal...

Marine and coastal applications are finally gaining wide acceptance in scientific as well as GIS communities. Comprising rigorous contributions from a group of leading scholars in marine and coastal GIS, this text covers progress and research in the marine and coastal relms, in the areas of theory, applications and empirical results.

Although the ocean provides living space for about 97 percent of life on Earth, less than 5 percent of the ocean below the surface has actually been seen, let alone explored. Now, using the geogrpahic information system (GIS), marine scientists are gaining new insights into a once-mysterious world. A technologically sophisticated database, information-management, and display system, GIS holds tremendous potential for mapping, interpreting, and managing ocean environments--"from the seafloor to the seafloor to the shoreline. "Place Matters explores how marine GIS is contributing to the...