A cohesive methodology for the delimitation of maritime zones and boundaries

Abstract

The delimitation of maritime zones and boundaries foreseen by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is a factor of economic growth, effective management of the coastal and ocean environment and the cornerstone for maritime spatial planning. Maritime boundaries form the outermost limits of coastal states and their accurate computation is a matter of national priority. The final delimitation agreement is ultimately a political decision; however the cartographer/GIS expert should portray the zones’ limits with the best possible accuracy. Existing applications tend to address this issue with their weakness being that the delimitation is a complex and time-consuming process. There, the subject is addressed in a fragmented way with the user composing the outer limits from partial results. This paper presents a cohesive methodology for the automated delimitation of the median lines and maritime zones between all states in a region based on the Voronoi tessellation of maritime space. Furthermore, through a case study, it presents and evaluates the results of this methodology and its implementation and demonstrates its ability to delimit the zones and boundaries, unilaterally and bilaterally, without the user’s intervention.