TITLE:
Territorial Planning for Coastal Zones in Chile: The Need for Geographical-Environmental and Natural Risk Indicators for Spatial Decision Support Systems
AUTHORS:
Fernando Peña-Cortés, Daniel Rozas-Vásquez, Gonzalo Rebolledo, Jimmy Pincheira-Ulbrich, Miguel Escalona, Enrique Hauenstein, Luis Vargas-Chacoff, Carlos Bertrán, Jaime Tapia, Marco Cisternas
KEYWORDS:
Coastal Zone; Territorial Planning; Indicators; Spatial Decision Support System; Chile
JOURNAL NAME:
International Journal of Geosciences,
Vol.4 No.6B,
August
20,
2013
ABSTRACT: Coastal zones are very
dynamic and fragile environments, constituting a landscape ever more
heterogeneous, fragmented and with increasing levels of complexity due to the changing
relationship between man and nature. Integrated coastal zone management
therefore requires detailed knowledge of the system and its components, based—to
a large extent—on technical and scientific information. However, the
information generated must be in line with the political requirements necessary
for decision-making and planning. Thus the use of indicators to give a
simplified view of the many components of the territory, and at the same time
to provide important information about patterns or trends, becomes a tool of
the utmost importance. These indicators can be understood as measurable
characteristics of the environment, which facilitate comprehension of the
processes occurring at different scales and serve as a reference to inform the
population and support decision-making. The aim of the present note is to
demonstrate briefly the need to develop geographical-environmental and natural
risk indicators to facilitate comprehension of the dynamic of spatial and
temporal landscape patterns, particularly in coastal environments. This
approach offers an historical summary of the natural, socio-economic and
political processes which currently make up the territory, and which without
doubt will continue to influence it in the future. At the same time, it is
proposed that information should be integrated on the basis of this framework
with a view to generating spatial decision support systems in a context of
planning and integrated management of the coastal zones of Chile.