An Expert System for Integrated Coastal Zone Management: A Geomorphological Case Study

This paper outlines the development of the COAstal Management Expert System (COAMES) within LOIS. Recently, there has been an exponential increase in environmental documentation and legislation, matched by an ever-increasing computational capability. The current state of high-performance computing means that for the first time a range of novel techniques can be effectively used to aid the coastal zone manager in addressing an information overload problem. The expert system is a tool within this range that applies expert knowledge to help solve real-world problems. A prototype of the system has been applied to characterize beach morphology on the rapidly-eroding Holderness Coast, Eastern England. Multi-temporal aerial photography was photogrammetrically processed to derive Digital Elevation Models (a regularly spaced grid of elevations) as input into the system. The constituent features of a composite ridge-type landform (ord) were elicited and stored as expert knowledge or rules, both in terms of positional relationships and morphometric parameters (slope, aspect and convexity). These rules were successfully used on consecutive digital elevation models to extract a geomorphological feature and track it through time. For coastal zone managers, we expect this capability will prove useful for monitoring and managing coasts with long-term erosion problems. COAMES also provides an example of the kind of systems now being developed to aid decision making in coastal regions.