ABSTRACT
The coastal zone is constantly changing, due to natural, social and economic processes. It contains some of the world's most productive and diverse resources, including extensive areas of mangroves, coral reefs and sea grass beds, which are highly sensitive to human intervention. This chapter describes a multimedia support information system for coastal zone management, named CoastMAP, which incorporates a wide variety of information from different databases. Sitting at their desks, the users can travel in virtual reality along the coast and see with their own eyes how it looks, with information reported to them about the area that they are flying over. The development of the flyover mechanism implies the resolution of some previous problems, such as digitization and orthorectification of photographs. In the present state, the 'flyover' mechanism is being developed using 'coastline charts'. An important issue is the design of the interface, which must be as intuitive and user-friendly as possible.
