Picturing a place by the sea: Geovisualizations as place-based tools for collaborative coastal management

Abstract

Effective coastal management is integrative and aims to incorporate the wide variety of user needs, values and interests associated with coastal environments. This requires understanding how different user groups relate to coastal environments as ‘places’, imbued with values and meanings, rather than simply ‘spaces’. Accordingly, tools and techniques that can capture and convey place-based information have potential for supporting coastal management strategies. This suggests a role for geovisualizations that inclusively reflect the range of values and meanings through immersion and realism. The current paper aims to advance coastal geovisualization research by firstly, examining relationships with, understandings of, and behaviours toward coastal places, and secondly, using this insight to create recommendations for building geovisualizations that can effectively facilitate collaboration among conflicting user groups. The paper identifies different coastal user groups using a cultural model framework, and through a review of previous research on coastal communities, it examines how the values and interests of these user groups influence understandings and perceptions of coastal places. Recommendations for geovisualizations emerging from this research include full navigability, dynamic elements, and flexibility in the way that they allow for continual modification and scenario building.