The Pertuis sea (French Atlantic Coast) is the most important area for oyster (Crassostrea gigas) production in Europe. High density in the restricted intertidal area induces reduced growth performances and socio-economical difficulties. A possible solution to this issue is to shift some oysters from intertidal area to submerged areas. The aim of this work is to develop a methodology to assess the potential of submerged oyster culture development and to assist decision makers in finding suitable sites. Spatial criteria such as species development capability, cost production, space competition from other activities like fisheries, navigation, leisure, tourism and preserved areas have to be taken into consideration. Available environmental data needed result from interpolated point measurements or physical and biological models. Due to their continuous nature they are generated and preferably handled on raster form. Others information such as administrative rules are on vector form. For classment and aggregation procedures, experts knowledge has been included. To hide from thematicians and coastal manager the complexity of GIS technology, a program called Patelle was developed by Ifremer. Patelle uses ArcView as a graphic editor to describe, tune and activate GIS processing chains. Patelle offers a set of pre-defined process templates which can be combined into a chain. Templates based on ArcView, ArcInfo, Grid and Perl commands were combined to produce the potential sites map.
Cliff Inbau
The City of Aurora's Utilities Department is utilizing GIS to analyze water usage within the city service area for multiple projects. Esri's ArcView 2.1 was chosen for accessing water usage information because of its power in SQL connectivity, Avenue script customization, spatial data analysis, file input/output, and graphical user interface. Using ArcView 2.1, the Utilities Department is able to access and analyze both historical and current customer water usage information by linking directly into an INFORMIX database. Applications include studies in water conservation, lawn irrigation return flow, water resource planning, as well as, a water audit program. This paper will lay out the steps in the development and use of this tool including Avenue script customization and database design.