Good Governance of Canada 's Oceans: Determining the Use, Value,
and Potential of Marine Boundary Information (HSS #55)
Project Successes
April 2001
This project began in September 2000 and runs until February 2002. It involves 7 senior
researchers and currently 7 graduate students in four universities across Canada, and
several federal and provincial government and private sector partners. The objectives of
the project are to: a) determine the marine boundary requirements for good ocean
governance; b) investigate data uncertainty with respect to the boundary information; c)
develop and extend new geomatics technologies and techniques; d) develop a
communications strategy and models for decision-makers. There are three case studies
under investigation: a) a portion of the continental shelf boundary; b) proposed marine
protected area in Musquash; c) the New Brunswick marine administrative boundary.
Networking and Communication Successes to date:
1. all team members, including partners, have been actively involved and are currently
looking for ways to expand the research because of its recognized significance;
2. presentations have been made in 12 Canadian and American forums, including a
keynote luncheon address at an offshore stakeholders workshop in Halifax - these
presentations have created a great deal of interest in the project and its implications,
including potential opportunities for further funding;
3. on-going development of a website that is also creating national and international
interest (http://www.unb.ca/web/GGE/Research/OceanGov/) (e.g., a delegation from
Russia came to UNB in December specifically to look at marine administrative
boundary issue);
4. an invitation to participate on the Permanent Committee of GIS Infrastructure for Asia
and
the
Pacific
(UN)
to
advise
on
marine
cadastral
issues
(http://www.gsi.go.jp/PCGIAP/pcstat_c.htm);
5. publication of one journal paper and development of a publication plan for more coauthored papers;
6. a GEOIDE internship as the first student exchange at the Centre for Governance;
7. invitation to hold a one day workshop on the project at the Digital Earth Conference;
8. development underway for an on-line real time demonstration of the Musquash case
study and dataset integration issues for the June 2001 GEOIDE conference.
Research Successes:
1. extensive preparation for the Musquash fieldwork, involving not only 5 GEOIDE
graduate students from 2 universities, but also actively involving two UNB
undergraduate classes in planning and carrying out the data collection.,processing, and
ground truthing activities in May 2001 - (data collection is being funded separately);
2. a preliminary report to Service New Brunswick on legal precedents for marine
administrative boundaries (we have to await the decision on the Nova
Scotia/Newfoundland boundary due in May 2001 before completion of the legal
research);
3. creation of a working group with government and industry to test datasets and
software for the Musquash case study - the first integration has been achieved;
4. student training through our industrial partner on high end software to be used and
expanded during the project for all three case studies;
5. preparation of a PhD proposal which included developing models to look at socialcultural and legal uncertainty as well as traditional data uncertainty;
6. a growing awareness among the research team, students, and partners of:
a) the complexity of the issues being raised as we put data sets together;
b) the value of the interdisciplinary approach to research.
We have a highly motivated team that will be devoted almost entirely to the GEOIDE
project over the summer months and we are actively looking for research support from a
number of sources to extend the project. NRCan has committed $100,000 from its share
of GEOIDE support to the project already.
Yours sincerely
Dr. Sue Nichols
Project Team Leader
University of New Brunswick