Overview of Coastal Atlases

This chapter provides a brief overview of various coastal web atlas projects around the world, providing a contextual bridge to the atlas case studies of Chapters 6-14. A summary of the policy context within which many European atlases operate is followed by a summary of other efforts emerging in Australia, the Western Pacific, Africa, and the Caribbean (as facilitated mainly by the Ocean Data and Information Network of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange). Atlas projects in the U.S. are summarized mainly via the results of a recent national survey of coastal managers reporting on the deployment and content of their atlases, with concluding thoughts on where there might be opportunities to develop approaches for a federated coastal atlas of the U.S.