International coastal experts descend on UOW

Jul 12, 2006

CoastGIS 2006, the seventh in a series of international conferences on research and the application of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to the marine and coastal zone, will be held at the University of Wollongong from Thursday 13 July to Saturday 15 July.

It is the first time the symposium has been held in the Southern Hemisphere.

Conference organisers expect about 150 participants from 16 different countries, including university researchers, hydrographers, marine scientists, and coastal managers. The scientific and applied papers will consider the ways in which data about the coastal zone can be collected, stored in databases and visualised using computer mapping and other sophisticated visualisation techniques.

The idea for a series of symposia entitled CoastGIS was born from the collaboration of the International Cartographic Association’s Commission on Marine Cartography and the International Geographical Union’s Commission on Coastal Systems.

In the early 1990s, both were aiming to find a vehicle through which coastal issues and technological processes could be examined and means by which recent advances in the mapping of the world’s coastal zones could jointly find an outlet.

Both Commissions were particularly interested in the then early potential of GIS in offering great opportunities for data access, manipulation and presentation as well as data management for those entrusted with making decisions that have an impact on the use of the world’s coasts by humans.

The previous six CoastGIS Symposia have been held in Ireland, Scotland twice, France, Canada and Italy.

The latest conference is being hosted at the University of Wollongong and supported by the Australian Hydrographic Service as Principal Partner and Geoscience Australia, the Department of Environment and Heritage and the National Atmospheric and Oceanographic Organisation (US) as Symposium Partners.

The local organisers of CoastGIS’06, Professor Colin Woodroffe in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Ron Furness, of the International Cartographic Association and formerly at the Hydrographic Office, conducted a very successful regional version, entitled CoastalGIS 2003, at the University of Wollongong in 2003.

Media please note: UOW Vice-Chancellor, Professor Gerard Sutton, will officially open the conference at 9am on Thursday 13 July.

Conference venue: Theatre 107 in the McKinnon Bldg (Bldg 67).

For further information contact Professor Colin Woodroffe on (02) 4221 3359.

For more information, contact:

media@uow.edu.au
University of Wollongong
Ph: (02) 4221 5942; fax (02) 4221 3128