Case Studies¶

GAIR Geoportal is a strayegic tool for geospatial analysis in support of Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) and marine environmental management, implementing the Case Study driven
approach.

The Geoportal holds a series of case studies organized respectively in modules for:
- Particle Tracking simulation (ParTrac),
- Maritime Use Conflict (MUC) Analysis,
- Cumulative Effects Assessment (CEA),
- Allocated Zones for Aquaculture (AZA),
- Small Scale Fisheries (SSF),
- Medium Scale Fisheries (MSF),
- Coastal Oil Spill Vulnerability Assessment (OIL SPIL).

Modules¶

For each type of module integrated in the Geoportal, a page allows to explore the list of case studies created by registered users (according with the permissions).

Particularly modules for MUC, CEA and ParTrac are based on Tools4MSP modelling Framework and implemented with Tools4MPS Web API services. See http://docs.tools4msp.eu/intro.html for
more details.
Modules for SSF and MSF are implemented with R package.

Particle Tracking (ParTrac)¶

This section of the geoportal implements the particle tracking module (PARTRAC). This module allows to assess the dispersion of particles released in the Adriatic Sea. An advection-diffusion modelling tool for Lagrangian particles is proposed as a planning tool tuned to end-users and stakeholders. Its outputs and derived variables can be customised and analysed based on the end-user requests and can be used to evaluate events as: impacts of aquaculture (larvae dispersion), tracking of floating debris and microplastic, point discharge and river plumes dispersion.

Domain of the PARTRAC module

The particle-tracking module simulates the trajectory of particles as a function of the hydrodynamic conditions simulated by the state of the art 3D SHYFEM oceanographic model.

Read http://docs.tools4msp.eu/modules/partrac/index.html for Particle Tracking details.

Maritime Use Conflict (MUC) Analysis¶

This section of the geoportal implements MUC module, that allows to assess and map maritime use conflicts. Conflicts (MUC) are defined as the constraints creating disadvantages to maritime activities located in a given sea area. The method applied is in line with COEXIST Project methodology (Gramolini et al., 2010), already applied within the Adriatic-Ionian Sea (Barbanti et al., 2015; Depellegrin et al., 2017).

Read http://docs.tools4msp.eu/modules/muc/index.html for Module Maritime Use Conflict details.

Cumulative Effects Assessment (CEA)¶

This section of the geoportal implements CEA module, that allows users to assess and map Cumulative Effects based on the Tools4MSP Modelling Framework. An MSP-oriented tool for the analysis and mapping of the effects of single or multiple human activities on marine environmental components. The image below illustrates the CEA impact chain defined by three components: Human use (U), the anthropogenic pressures (P) exerted by the use U and the environmental components (E) that are impacted the pressure.

CEA module workflow

The method is based on a consolidated methodology developed within the Tools4MSP modelling framework. Results of the CEA will highlight sea areas of highest cumulative on a single and multisector level Cumulative Effects based on the Tools4MSP Modelling Framework.

Read http://docs.tools4msp.eu/modules/cea/index.html for Module Cumulative Effects Assessment details.

Allocated Zones for Aquaculture (AZA)¶

The AZA (Allocated Zones for Aquaculture - FAO, 2012) module implemented a spatially explicit Multi-Criteria methodology, namely SMCE (Spatial Multi-Criteria Evaluation) for identifying AZAs, i.e. marine areas where the development of aquaculture is prior to other uses. The SMCE applied for the AZA module can be carried out following the framework developed in Brigolin et al. (2017) throughout three steps: i) criteria normalization; ii) weight assignment to each criterion; iii) suitability index calculation (see Radiarta et al., 2008). All the criteria to run the AZA module, together with the weights and the constraints, are in the PORTODIMARE geoportal and are available for the users.

Small and Medium Scale Fisheries (SSF/MSF)¶

This section of the geoportal implements respectively modules for Small and Medium Scale Fisheries (SSF/MSF).
Provides a tool for visualizing fishing pressure for small and medium-scale coastal fisheries,
combines the multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and geospatial techniques to quantify the synergistic effect of influential components (e.g., bathymetry, distance from coast, Chla concentration, fishing effort, marine traffic activity, vessel capacity of ports, etc.) on defining fishing footprint.
It is based on Hellenic Center for Marine Research (HCMR) fprmcda R package.

For more information about the methodology associated with the fprmcda package, please see Kavadas et al., 2015.

Links to the development R source tree and documentation can be found into the package home page on CRAN, https://cran.r-project.org/package=fprmcda.

Coastal Oil Spill Vulnerability Assessment (OIL SPIL)¶

This section of the geoportal implements Coastal Oil Spill Vulnerability Assessment, that consists of a risk map based on COMADEX index developed in HAZADR project (https://www.hazadr.eu/).
The map collect two coastal vulnerability layers (Adriatic sea and Italian Jonian sea) with a vulnerability score for Environmental Component and Human uses and a Total vulnerability score.
The map shows the monthly sum of COMADEX index collected from 2019 data in 12 different layers in two seasonal groups.
Enabling different COMADEX monthly layers (even all) will help to imagine different scenarios for Oil Spill hazard.
The user can estimate a Oil Spill hazard marine area (optionally draw it with Measure Area tool) and adjust the map view to the part of the coastline involved to have a quick view of the vulnerability
score and its components.

How to use Modules through GAIR interface¶

This next section will guide you through modules use.

How to run modules¶

The steps to run a module are:

select Module to run
select Case Study and area of interest
configure dataset (or use default values)
run module and view results

Case studies, related to modules, can be accessed respectively from the Case Studies dropdown menu of the navigation bar (at the top of the page), shown in the picture below.

Case Studies Dropdown menu

So user can explore the list of available case studies for each modules.

This next section will guide you through a detailed use of case studies.