GIS FOR INTEGRATED ROMANIAN COASTAL ZONE MANAGEMENT. SITE MAMAIA BEACH.
O. Anicai , Institute for Computers,
167 Calea Floreasca, Bucharest, Romania
ABSTRACT
This presentation describes the GIS analysis of the environmental data such as risk assessment site characterization and desktop access to the analytical data. A GIS approach was engaged to map the changing characteristics of the shoreline to the Mamaia beach. Shoreline attributes including granulation, stability and erosion control were mapped within an ARC/INFO GIS system. Using a GIS appears to be the most appropriate tool in managing and analyzing the multiple spatial layers involved in the ecological development and maintenance of beach ecosystems. The GIS ARC/INFO and ARCView were used to display and analyze the multiple layers of spatial data. The modeling of beaches and coastal structures near the Constanta town (Mamaia beach) in Romania, Black sea coast have been followed; the following parameters are measured: evolution of the beach, influence of the different structures on the evolution of the beach at the coastal area.
INTRODUCTION
The coastal zone is extremely important to most coastal countries. Consequently, there is concern for its future, particularly regarding the status of its natural resources, which provide life support and economic development opportunities to coastal settlements. In rural areas of the coast, some combination of agriculture, forestry and fisheries is often the major economic activity. In such places, the highest priority should go to conservation of resources to ensure that the combination of resource uses is sustainable.
In coastal zone management, the semi enclosed sea (Black Sea) are often given high priority if they have concentrations of industry and settlements (as most do) or if they are particularly susceptible to pollution, being shallow and confined (as most are). The actions may include both prevention and remedial measures. For both there should be enforceable guidelines to strengthen the national capacity for effective coastal zone management. The approach recommended here is the Integrated Coastal Zone Management system. This is a system for controlling development and other human activities that affect the condition of economic resources and the quality of environment in coastal zones [1].
THE ROLE OF GIS IN INTEGRATED ROMANIAN COASTAL ZONE MANAGEMENT (IRCZM)
Resources conservation and economic development concerns can and must be combined. Well planned, conservation oriented development will add to the economic and social prosperity of a coastal community in the long term. Environmentally destructive development will sooner or later have a negative socio economic impact.
There are several major driving forces behind the devastating coastal resources depletion that many countries are suffering:
The Romanian Black Sea shore has a length of 244 Km, extending from Chilia branch, in the north, to Vama Veche, (Bulgarian border) southward.
It is divided into two major units: the Northern unit (lies between the Chilia branch and Midia Cape) and the Southern unit (between Cape Midia and Vama Veche). The Southern unit is primarily characterized by erosive coast, with active cliffs, interrupted only by small sand bars and barrier beaches. The Southern unit of the Romanian Shore was divided in three sectors, each of them with different shore protection solutions: a) Mamaia sector; b) Cape Signol Eforie Sud; c) Eforie Sud Vama Veche.
Mamaia sector, shows accretion in the its Northern part and erosion in the Southern one. In fact, the Southern part is very important for touristic purposes (Mamaia beach), but it was severely destroyed in winter of 1998.
After 1988 urgently protection measures were required (6 longshore breakwaters). The string of breakwaters, situated at 500m distance from the shore, were built along southern part of Mamaia, in response to incapacity of natural beach recovering and artificial sand nourishment works were implemented using sand from bottom of nearby Mamaia Lake[4],[5],[6].
These protection hydrotechnical works were designed for dissipating waves energy and to reduce the action of waves against beach. These works were developed in two stages: 1988 1990 and 1990 1991. The nourishment works started in February 1989 and ended in June 1990. During this period the sedimentary budget increased with about 500 000 cubic meters sand, thus it determined obtaining about 64 000 m2 of new beach.
Mamaia beach shoreline retreated up to 38 m, among 1978 and 1995, and only in a small area accumulation was registered, with maximum value of 15 m. Another matter of concern is illegal exploitation of beach sand, for different purposes. This sand scraping affected in some areas of 2 km the sand dunes vegetation, the morphological balance of the beaches and determined the rapid destruction of beach profile [3].
In the present days already were implemented some activities in field of the IRCZM. In Romania is on going an ICZM National Program, that has been implemented by the Team of Romanian ICZM Focal Point within Romanian Marine Research Institute Constanta (RMRI). RMRI highlighted several factors that determine an overall successful GIS implementation: this area has a nationally unique importance from the economic, strategic, commercial, tourism, balneo climatic, cultural and historical points of view. The major challenge facing Romanian ICZM program was the lack of cartographic information in a digitized format.
In recent years, studies of hydrology, geomorphology, biology and the impact of increasing pollution upon the Black Sea have been conducted by RMRI. These studies werent geographically referenced. This pilot- application will be essential for the analysis and representation of hydrological, geomorphological and biological data and their interaction. The GIS spatial database for the Constanta County Coastal Zone (CCCZ) was loaded from a number of different sources: a) topological representation of the CCCZ from 1:25 000, 1:10 000, 1:2 000 scale basic maps in a digitized format; b) published Black Sea maps and working drawings; c) recording of short and long term morphological development regarding coastal conservation and the rise in the sea level; d) maps of the Black Sea fauna and vegetation as well as chemical and sediment parameters. That project uses ARC/INFO, ARCView, and MapObjects software produced by ESRI. The final goal is to integrate geographic and statistical attributes stored on several of the countys databases. The resulting digital maps will be displayed on workstation terminals located throughout the focal point area to make it easier for county staff to query and analyze current information. To maps will be linked information about human activity impact, economy (maritime transport and goods traffic, chemical and petrochemical industries, building materials industry, hosing and infrastructure construction, tourism).
Conclusions
The GIS powered project will give users, who may include private citizens and government officials, the ability to perform a search around the proposed location to evaluate site suitability for various purposes. I consider that GIS software products offer one of the best solutions for environment spatial data management. Open, fast and available for a range of DBMS, the GIS is software for seamlessly integrating spatial data types in this program. Within this study users will have access to site maps with structures, utilities, land characteristics and demographics data; they may also call up official documents, spreadsheets.
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