With a view to strengthening the public availability, sharing and use of information in coastal planning and management, the study examined policy requirements and options for coastal information systems CISs). The following specific services were provided to the European Commission: • Analysis of 40 illustrative cases of CISs in Europe through ad hoc defined sheet and in-depth analysis of 12 selected CISs through document consultation, direct interviews to CIS’s developers and/or users, on-line access to CISs, visit to office in charge of CISs uses and maintenance; • Based on results of previous activities, identification of policy requirements for CISs, i.e. requisites that can be concretely implemented in CISs in order to improve the use of the same systems in supporting the diffusion and implementation of the ICZM process at various scales; • Elaboration of policy options, defined as integrated sets of policy requirements and impact assessment of policy options, according to the EC Impact Assessment Guidelines; • Stakeholder involvement and participation in the study activities, including the organisation of a stakeholder workshop in Marseille (May 2011) aiming to support policy options elaboration and related impact assessment • Project management and reporting and participation to ICZM expert group meeting to inform MSs experts on study progress and receive their feedback. Results of the study were considered as part of the impact assessment towards a follow-up proposal to the EU ICZM Recommendation (2002/413/EC), that led to the proposal for an ICM and MSP framework Directive (EC COM(2013) 133).
