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Published: 13 March 2012

One-stop webshop for coastal research information


Councils and developers will now have the latest coastal research at their fingertips, with the launch of Coastal Research, a new webportal developed by CSIRO.

Lighthouse at Byron Bay, NSW, August 2010. Improved access to research is the goal of the new Coastal Research website, which is aimed at coastal councils, developers and others involved in decisions affecting coastal areas in Australia.
Credit: thinboyfatter

The Coastal Research portal enables coastal councils, and other coastal stakeholders, to find research easily at a national level, and then focus on regional and local research projects.

CSIRO committed to creating the Coastal Research Webportal at last year’s Australian Coastal Councils Conference, when it was realised local councils had a low awareness of the range of coastal research available.

‘A central webportal to access the latest research data will enable decision makers to better evaluate proposals for their communities,’ says Dr Andy Steven, from CSIRO’s Wealth from Oceans Flagship.

‘The website will also allow scientists and decision makers to investigate possible collaborations, to promote scientific research, and to identify any research gaps,’ says Dr Steven.

The webportal has short, plain-English, acronym-free research summaries and it provides further links to freely available data and research, under the Creative Commons license.

Barry Sammels, the Chairman of the National Sea Change Taskforce said, ‘There is no doubt this webportal will be of enormous practical benefit for everyone who is involved in coastal planning and management.’

The webportal, which uses a Google Maps interface, was developed in cooperation with TERN – the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, which will now manage the website.

The webportal can be found at: http://coastalresearch.csiro.au/

This is an Australian Coastal Ecosystem Facility (ACEF) project under TERN, funded by ACEF and CSIRO. TERN is supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy and the Super Science Initiative.

Source: CSIRO






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