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Is it all about the data? A review on the use of existing data to populatesustainability indicators for Europe’s coastsKathrin Kopke & Cathal O’MahonyCoastal and Marine Research Centre,ERI, University College Cork,Naval Base, Haulbowline Island, Cobh, Co. Cork, Irelandk.kopke@ucc.ie, c.omahony@ucc.ieAbstractData availability and quality to provide sound information for regional coastal decision and policy makers is seenas a basic requirement to successfully support sustainable development of the coastal zone. The use of indicatorbased assessments, identified by European coastal practitioners as a methodology to support coastal sustainabledevelopment, seems to be hindered by problems with utilising existing data. In contrast vast amount of datasets andinformation collated across Europe are seen to be relevant to develop Coastal GIS in order to provide decision supportfor sustainable coastal development. This review is looking at the challenges reported when utilising existingdata sources in Coastal GIS and coastal sustainability indicator projects in order to make policy relevant observationsand recommendations that address these challenges.IntroductionConsiderable volumes of data and information have been collated across Europe by numerous institutions to caterto a diversity of requirements, for example through research, environmental reporting, surveys and monitoring programs(Hynes and Farrelly, 2010; Stojanovic et al., 2010). Many of these stored datasets are seen to have relevanceto the coastal zone (Stojanovic et al., 2010) and are thought to contribute to decision support for sustainable developmentin coastal areas. Despite the clear rationale for using data within GIS environments to support the implementationof indicator-based assessments for coastal management (Cummins et al., 2005), a number of European indicatorinitiatives did not have a dedicated GIS supporting their projects and reported a range of issues and challengesrelated to the use of existing data to measure their indicators. This paper reviews indicator based approaches andidentifies the challenges relating to data use and integration within GIS environments – technical and policy focusedsolutions are proposed which provide options on how best to progress the combined use of indicator and GIS-basedapproaches for the purposes of effective coastal management.MethodsA review of the results of coastal sustainability indicator based projects and relevant literature was undertaken inorder to ascertain the issues related to the use of data and GIS. This process was also used to explore potential solutionsand recommendations that can address the identified issues. A survey of participants from projects included inthe review provided an additional level of enquiry for the identification of issues and solutions, as well as providinga means of detecting other relevant coastal sustainability indicator projects and survey participants to be includedwithin the review exercise (see Figure 1).Challenges with the use of existing data in coastal sustainability indicator projectsIndicators, based on sound data, can form the basis for decision making and are well documented as tools that cansupport sustainable coastal development (Lescrauwaet et al., 2004; Pickaver et al., 2004; Ballinger et al., 2010).However, some European sustainable indicator projects such as the DEDUCE project (2005–2007) and the morerecent SUSTAIN project (2009–2012) experienced similar challenges with the use of existing data in terms of thematicavailability, accessibility of data, spatial and temporal coverage and reliability (Xavier et al., 2007; Ballingeret al., 2010; Loizidou and Loizides, 2012; Pickaver et al., 2012). These data issues seem to persist over time, for131