Journal of Marine Science and Engineering

Research

13 pages, 48294 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Use of Geoinformatics in Coastal Atmospheric Transport Phenomena: The Athens Experiment

by Theodoros Nitis and Nicolas Moussiopoulos

J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2021, 9(11), 1197; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9111197 - 29 Oct 2021

Viewed by 1303

Coastal environment, an area where abrupt changes occur between land and sea, significantly affects the quality of life of a high portion of the Earth’s population. Therefore, the wide range of phenomena observed in coastal areas need to be assessed reliably regarding both [...] Read more.

Coastal environment, an area where abrupt changes occur between land and sea, significantly affects the quality of life of a high portion of the Earth’s population. Therefore, the wide range of phenomena observed in coastal areas need to be assessed reliably regarding both data sets and methods applied. In particular, the study of coastal atmospheric transport phenomena which affect a variety of activities in coastal areas, using modeling techniques, demand accurate estimations of a range of meteorological and climatological variables related to the planetary boundary layer. However, the accuracy of such estimations is not obvious. Geoinformatics is able to fill this gap and provide the framework for the design, processing and implementation of accurate geo-databases. This paper aims to highlight the role of geoinformatics in the context of coastal meteorology and climatology. More precisely, it aims to reveal the effect on the performance of a Mesoscale Meteorological Model when a new scheme regarding the input surface parameters is developed using satellite data and application of Geographical Information Systems. The development of the proposed scheme is described and evaluated using the coastal Metropolitan Area of Athens, Greece as a case study. The results indicate a general improvement in the model performance based on the statistical evaluations of three meteorological parameters (temperature, wind speed and wind direction) using four appropriate indicators. The best performance was observed for temperature, then for wind direction and finally for wind speed. The necessity of the proposed new scheme is further discussed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Coastal and Marine Geographic Information Systems)

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15 pages, 2800 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

A webGIS Application to Assess Seawater Quality: A Case Study in a Coastal Area in the Northern Aegean Sea

by Dimitra Kitsiou, Anastasia Patera, George Tsegas and Theodoros Nitis

J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2021, 9(1), 33; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9010033 - 31 Dec 2020

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2581

Abstract

The assessment of seawater quality in coastal areas is an important issue as it is related to the welfare of coastal ecosystems, a prerequisite for the provision of the related ecosystem services. During the last decades, marine eutrophication has become an important problem [...] Read more.

The assessment of seawater quality in coastal areas is an important issue as it is related to the welfare of coastal ecosystems, a prerequisite for the provision of the related ecosystem services. During the last decades, marine eutrophication has become an important problem in coastal waters as a result of nutrient inputs increase. Consequently, there is need for appropriate methods and tools to assess the eutrophication status of seawater which should be user-friendly to coastal managers and support the adoption of effective plans for the protection and sustainable development of the coastal environment. In this framework, a user-friendly webGIS application has been developed and the Strait of Mytilene at the southeastern part of the Island of Lesvos in the NE Aegean Sea, Greece, was used as a case study. The methodology includes, as a first step, the evaluation of the accuracy of spatial interpolators widely applied in oceanographic studies for assessing the spatial distribution of relevant variables. The most appropriate interpolator revealed for each variable is subsequently applied for the production of the representative thematic layer. The second step involves the integration of the information from the optimal thematic layers representing the spatial distributions of the variables under study; as a result, a new thematic layer illustrating the eutrophication status of the study area is produced. The webGIS application is fully available via a web browser and provides a number of geoprocessing modules developed in Python which implement the user interface, the application of the interpolation analytical tasks, the statistical evaluation toolset and the integration of the optimal interpolated layers. Suggestions for further improvement of the proposed webGIS application are discussed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Coastal and Marine Geographic Information Systems)

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18 pages, 7573 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Establishing an Integrated Permanent Sea-Level Monitoring Infrastructure towards the Implementation of Maritime Spatial Planning in Cyprus

by Chris Danezis, Marios Nikolaidis, Christodoulos Mettas, Diofantos G. Hadjimitsis, Georgios Kokosis and Chrysanthi Kleanthous

J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(11), 861; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse8110861 - 30 Oct 2020

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2935

Abstract

The Maritime Spatial Planning is a piece of legislation (2014/89/EU) of the European Union that must be implemented by all member countries to enable management of their waters in a more coherent way to reduce conflicts, encourage investments, increase cross-border cooperation and protect [...] Read more.

The Maritime Spatial Planning is a piece of legislation (2014/89/EU) of the European Union that must be implemented by all member countries to enable management of their waters in a more coherent way to reduce conflicts, encourage investments, increase cross-border cooperation and protect the environment. Cyprus and Greece are working together in the frame of the THALCHOR2 project to implement this directive. From the Cyprus point of view, this directive has been a unique opportunity to modernize its Hydrographic and Geodetic Infrastructure to enable and facilitate the generation of reliable marine geospatial information. Concordantly, a network of integrated state-of-the-art multi-sensor stations has been established along the shoreline of the government-controlled territories to seamlessly monitor sea level, vertical crustal motion and meteorological parameters. This research provides insight into the implementation of this infrastructure and the data processing workflow to determine tidal levels. Furthermore, the first results acquired after exploiting two years of observations are presented along with initial aspects concerning mean sea-level variability in the Southeastern Mediterranean region. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Coastal and Marine Geographic Information Systems)

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15 pages, 5134 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Mesoscale Ocean Feature Identification in the North Aegean Sea with the Use of Sentinel-3 Data

by Spyros Spondylidis, Konstantinos Topouzelis, Dimitris Kavroudakis and Michail Vaitis

J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(10), 740; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse8100740 - 25 Sep 2020

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3566

Abstract

The identification of oceanographic circulation related features is a valuable tool for environmental and fishery management authorities, commercial use and institutional research. Remote sensing techniques are suitable for detection, as in situ measurements are prohibitively costly, spatially sparse and infrequent. Still, these imagery [...] Read more.

The identification of oceanographic circulation related features is a valuable tool for environmental and fishery management authorities, commercial use and institutional research. Remote sensing techniques are suitable for detection, as in situ measurements are prohibitively costly, spatially sparse and infrequent. Still, these imagery applications require a certain level of technical and theoretical skill making them practically unreachable to the immediate beneficiaries. In this paper a new geospatial web service is proposed for providing daily data on mesoscale oceanic feature identification in the North Aegean Sea, produced by Sentinel-3 SLSTR Sea Surface Temperature (SST) imagery, to end users. The service encompasses an automated process for: raw data acquisition, interpolation, oceanic feature extraction and publishing through a webGIS application. Level-2 SST data are interpolated through a Co-Kriging algorithm, involving information from short term historical data, in order to retain as much information as possible. A modified gradient edge detection methodology is then applied to the interpolated products for the mesoscale feature extraction. The resulting datasets are served according to the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards and are available for visualization, processing and download though a dedicated web portal. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Coastal and Marine Geographic Information Systems)

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24 pages, 7603 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Importance of the Coordinate Transformation Process in Using Heterogeneous Data in Coastal and Marine Geographic Information System

by Emanuele Alcaras, Claudio Parente and Andrea Vallario

J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(9), 708; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse8090708 - 12 Sep 2020

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3849

Abstract

Coastal and Marine Geographic Information Systems (CMGISs) permit to collect, manage, and analyze a great amount of heterogeneous data concerning coastal, sea, and ocean environments, e.g., nautical charts, topographic maps, remotely sensed images. To integrate those heterogeneous layers in CMGIS, particular attention is [...] Read more.

Coastal and Marine Geographic Information Systems (CMGISs) permit to collect, manage, and analyze a great amount of heterogeneous data concerning coastal, sea, and ocean environments, e.g., nautical charts, topographic maps, remotely sensed images. To integrate those heterogeneous layers in CMGIS, particular attention is necessary to ensure the perfect geo-localization of data, which is a basic requirement for the correct spatial analysis. In fact, the above-mentioned types of information sources are usually available in different cartographic projections, geodetic datum, and scale of representation. Therefore, automatic conversions supplied by Geographic Information System (GIS) software for layer overlay do not produce results with adequate positional accuracy. This paper aims to describe methodological aspects concerning different data integration in CMGIS in order to enhance its capability to handle topics of coastal and marine applications. Experiments are carried out to build a CMGIS of the Campania Region (Italy) harmonizing different data (maps and satellite images), which are heterogeneous for datum (World Geodetic System 1984 and European Datum 1950), projection (Mercator and Universal Transverse of Mercator), and scale of representation (large and medium scale). Results demonstrate that automatic conversion carried out by GIS software are insufficient to ensure levels of positional accuracy adequate for large scale representation. Therefore, additional operations such as those proposed in this work are necessary. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Coastal and Marine Geographic Information Systems)

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28 pages, 3433 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Value of Marine Spatial Open Data Infrastructures—Potentials of IHO S-100 Standard tο Become the Universal Marine Data Model

by Stilianos Contarinis, Athanasios Pallikaris and Byron Nakos

J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(8), 564; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse8080564 - 27 Jul 2020

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3953

Abstract

Marine spatial “open” data infrastructures (MSDI) have a significant economic and societal potential for coastal nations and their realization is driven by the evolution of the International Hydrographic Organization’s (IHO) S-100 data model for facilitating marine domain interoperability and the World Wide Web [...] Read more.

Marine spatial “open” data infrastructures (MSDI) have a significant economic and societal potential for coastal nations and their realization is driven by the evolution of the International Hydrographic Organization’s (IHO) S-100 data model for facilitating marine domain interoperability and the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) best practices for spatial data publishing on the Web. The recent European directive on open data and the re-use of public sector information, known as the “Open Data Directive” is a key driver towards the establishment of “open” MSDIs among other spatial data infrastructures. The paper discusses possible data architectures for the MSDIs, examines the maturity of open data platforms that they could be built upon and compares the most prominent marine spatial data models for their applicability in relation to three marine information domains. MSDIs can facilitate the continuous data capturing of spatial-temporal physical phenomena and human activities at sea and coastal areas, the corresponding data analysis and the decision-making for achieving continual improvement in the marine planning and management processes. MSDIs could play a key role in digital government transformation (DGT) for effective data sharing and offering marine services across various stakeholders. The information provided through a MSDI can be used for safe and efficient operation of maritime traffic, exploration and exploitation of marine resources, marine spatial planning (MSP), integrated coastal zone management (ICZM), environmental protection, and naval and maritime security. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Coastal and Marine Geographic Information Systems)

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16 pages, 2937 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Grain-Size Distribution of Surface Sediments in the Chanthaburi Coast, Thailand and Implications for the Sedimentary Dynamic Environment

by Chengtao Wang, Min Chen, Hongshuai Qi, Wichien Intasen and Apichai Kanchanapant

J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(4), 242; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse8040242 - 02 Apr 2020

Cited by 21 | Viewed by 4286

Abstract

This paper analyzes the grain-size distribution of surface sediments of the Chanthaburi coast of Thailand to investigate the sedimentary environment and its evolution to better use and protect the coast. The Flemming triangle method, the grade-standard deviation method, and the Gao–Collins grain-size trend [...] Read more.

This paper analyzes the grain-size distribution of surface sediments of the Chanthaburi coast of Thailand to investigate the sedimentary environment and its evolution to better use and protect the coast. The Flemming triangle method, the grade-standard deviation method, and the Gao–Collins grain-size trend analysis method (GSTA model) were used to study the dynamic sedimentary environment of the area and provide preliminary identification of source materials. There are seven types of surface sediments on this coast, with grain sizes (φ) generally consisting of sand and silt. Sorting is generally poor, and becomes gradually poorer with distance offshore. Skewness is generally positive. The study area is mainly composed of sand and silt, indicating that the hydrodynamics are strong. The results of grade-standard deviation analysis indicate that sediment grain size b (3.25–4.5φ) is a sensitive indicator of environmental change. This sediment type exhibits a relatively complex transport trend, mainly characterized by northwestward and northeastward transport from sea to land. Sediments at the mouth of the Chanthaburi Estuary and the Welu River fluctuate under the influence of tidal currents. Based on the results of grade-standard deviation analysis and grain-size trend analysis, the study area was divided into three provinces, representing different sedimentary environments and material sources. Compared with tidal-controlled estuaries in the temperate regions of eastern China, the two tropical estuaries examined in this study exhibited smaller suspended sediment loads, runoff amounts, and tidal ranges. However, hydrodynamic conditions were generally stronger. The main reasons for the similarities and differences in the transport trends of sediments in these estuaries were differences in hydrodynamic conditions and the specifics of regional topography. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Coastal and Marine Geographic Information Systems)

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16 pages, 8494 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Integrated GIS Methodology to Assess the Impact of Engineering Maintenance Activities: A Case Study of Dredging Projects

by Pedro Magaña, Miguel Á. Reyes-Merlo, Ángela Tintoré, Carmen Zarzuelo and Miguel Ortega-Sánchez

J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2020, 8(3), 186; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse8030186 - 10 Mar 2020

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2276

Abstract

Engineering infrastructures require regular maintenance and/or repair activities that have important social, environmental, and economic impacts. Despite their growing importance, few studies have focused on fully integrated analyses. This work presents a general methodological approach to design databases of engineering maintenance activities for [...] Read more.

Engineering infrastructures require regular maintenance and/or repair activities that have important social, environmental, and economic impacts. Despite their growing importance, few studies have focused on fully integrated analyses. This work presents a general methodological approach to design databases of engineering maintenance activities for their assessment. This methodology was applied to the case of dredging projects in the ports managed by the Andalusian Regional Government (Spain). The resulting database contains 87 fields of information obtained from the analysis of 70 activities performed between 1993 and 2015. This database is free, public, and available to the scientific community, and it was implemented in PostgreSQL using the PostGIS extension for spatial data; therefore, it can be integrated in a GIS. The assessment of deviations from the initial projects and the comparison between locations enhanced our methodology, which represents a valuable tool not only for scientists and managers to improve the decision-making process when planning future strategies, but also to evaluate the environmental impacts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Coastal and Marine Geographic Information Systems)

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