Integration of geographic information systems for monitoring and dissemination of marine environment data

Abstract

The issue of monitoring, analysis and visualization of marine activity, either for the purpose of environment protection or threat sensing, has been the subject of intensive research for many years. In the last decades, presented solutions have shown the advantages of dedicated software for storing and management of acoustic and spatial data (Stepnowski et al., 1996; Trygonis et al., 2009; Thakur et al., 2011) as well as the potential of web mapping in application to environmental modelling (Maceachren and Kraak, 1997; Doyle et al., 1998; Goodall et al., 2011). In more recent years, many commercial and scientific institutions have been continuously contributing to the process of development and application of various tools for aquatic sensing. Because of this, the variety of marine sensors is very wide, ranging from simple techniques such as direct sampling or hydrological measurements using CTD probes, through hydroacoustic surveys, air-borne photographs and satellite imaging to numerical modelling and simulation.