The Role of Geospatial Data In Maritime Boundary Management: Indonesian Experience

A. Rimayanti 1, S. Lokita1, T. Patmasari1

1

Center for Boundary Mapping, BAKOSURTANAL

Abstract Maritime boundary represents the sovereignty and sovereign rights of a state. Coastal States should maintain their maritime boundaries in order to protect not only their territory but also their national interest. It is not a question that maritime boundary is always related to national security and national resources. For example, territorial sea boundary will always become the indicator of the limit of a country to manifest their sovereignty. Furthermore, the continental shelf boundary will always define where a country can actually explore and exploit natural resources in the sea bed. Many countries already put their self in a conflict relating to maritime boundary since for those countries, sovereignty and national interests are non-negotiable. For Indonesia, maintaining its maritime boundaries is not an easy task. The fact that Indonesia has 10 neighboring countries is a clear picture how complex the task is. Furthermore, maritime boundary is a vast growing issue. It is not only influenced by political and legal factors, but also technical aspect has a significant role. In order to handle the complexity in dealing with maritime boundaries issues, from the stage of delineation until administration, Indonesia would need to form a management system that is ready to support policy and decision making process. The system that will be able to provide decision makers related data when they need it. This paper will examine the Indonesian experience in dealing with its maritime boundaries, especially in developing maritime boundary management system that involves an advance geo information system. It shall also analyze ways and means that will develop the system to handle problems and challenges in the future. Keywords: boundary, management, Geographic Information System

The Role of Geospatial Data in Maritime Boundary Management: Indonesian Experience

I. Introduction There are five largest countries that are known mainly as archipelagic states, they are Japan, the Philippines, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the last one is Indonesia. According to the CIA world Factbook, Indonesia is considered as the worlds largest archipelagic state. Indonesia as an archipelagic state has more than 17 thousand islands and according to the Indonesia Marine Council, Indonesia has worlds fourth longest coastline which is 95181 km. There are 92 outermost islands which are bordering with neighboring countries such as Malaysia, Philippines, Timor Leste, Australia, Thailand, Singapore, India, Vietnam, Palau and Papua New Guinea. Indonesia with its geographically conditions must be ready to have good strategies in establishing, maintaining and managing its position through its maritime boundary. For Indonesia, maintaining its maritime boundary is not an easy task. Indonesia has different maritime boundaries that should be solved with neighboring countries. Each of maritime boundaries has its special management and has its own problems to be solved and have to be complied with the UNCLOS 1982 requirement. Many maritime boundary issues arise between bordering countries, recently related to the status of oil block which is contested between Indonesia and Malaysia. Thus Indonesia with the complexity of maritime boundary has to establish a system for managing its maritime boundary which can support decision makers in strengthens the position of the Indonesias maritime boundary. II. Maritime Boundary According to Martin Pratt (2008), there are almost 366 international boundaries unsolved and 168 international boundaries which have been signed. The mentioned maritime boundaries are Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and Continental Shelf. The situation illustrates that the delimitation of maritime boundaries in many cases are complex and difficult to be solved and it becomes our tasks to solve it to have equitable solutions for neighboring countries. Maritime boundaries are one of the essential elements of a coastal state where the sovereign is represented under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Therefore the clearly define maritime boundaries are important to have a good relation between neighboring countries. Indonesia has experienced growing its area significantly since TZMKO 1939 until the application of UNCLOS III effectively in November 1994. TZMKO conception which segregated the country into islands those were separated by strait and sea and gave the 3 nautical mile width of territorial sea which Beyond the territorial sea of a coastal state, there is the high sea where foreign ships were free to traverse upon, and to exploit and explored the marine resources; while UNCLOS with sea regimes: territorial sea, contiguous zone, Exclusive Economic Zone and continental shelf.

Figure 1. International Maritime Boundaries (Reference: http://www.gdais.com/index.cfm?acronym=gmbd) The Government of the Republic Indonesia through its statement on Djuanda Declaration on 13 December 1957 claimed all water inside the state belonged to Indonesia which is internationally accepted by countries under UNCLOS. The Declaration was then reinforced with the Law Number 4/Prp.1960. This was the beginning of the concept of Wawasan Nusantara or Archipelago Principle. Throughout the Law Number 4/Prp.1960, Indonesia begin to establish its archipelagic baselines connecting basepoints which were located on its outermost islands and the breadth of territorial sea was then being 12 nautical mile (nm). Indonesia ratified the UNCLOS 1982 with Law Number 17/ 1985. The UNCLOS 1982 is effectively entered into force on the 16th November 1994 and in 1996 Indonesia has revised the Law number 4/Prp.1960 with the Law Number 6/1996 on the Indonesian Waters.

Figure 2. Maritime Zones

As it is stipulated in UNCLOS, Indonesia as an archipelagic state has an obligation to draw its baseline and its maritime boundaries. Indonesia through the Government Regulation (GR) Number 38/2002 on the geographical List of Coordinates of the Indonesia Archipelagic Baseline, Indonesia has established its archipelagic baseline with regard to UNCLOS 1982. In this year, the government of Indonesia has been submitted to the Indonesian archipelagic baseline to United Nation. Indonesia is always trying to defend the country with a range of surveys and research. There have been many research data generated, which obtained either from the maritime boundaries negotiations with neighboring countries as well as geospatial data from the surveys and from the other sources. The data is expected to support Indonesia in the negotiation for maintaining the country and it is expected in managing the Indonesias maritime boundaries. III. Geospatial Data in Maritime Boundary Management 3.1 Geospatial data in GIS According to webpodia, geospatial data is data or information that identifies the geographic location of features and boundaries on Earth, such as natural or constructed features, oceans, and more. Spatial data is usually stored as coordinates and topology, and is data that can be mapped. The geospatial data can be a vector or raster maps which can be
accessed, manipulated or analyzed through Geographic Information Systems (GIS). A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a computerized data management system for the capture, storage, retrieval, analysis and display of spatial data. GIS has been used widely used in maritime boundary delimitations and is integral to the process of delimiting and managing maritime boundaries. According to Palmer, Harold D. and Pruett, L. (1999), maritime boundaries established under either the UNCLOS protocols or unilateral coastal state claims are dependent upon some geospatial reference which (initially) provides a point on the earth surface as the fixed basis for a claim. In GIS, maritime boundaries should have a geospatial reference which defines and manages the spatial reference system and this is the first important aspect which has to be noted in the GIS. In GIS, the spatial data can be manipulated with three requirements to be known [Palmer, Harold D. and Pruett, L., 1999]: - what is the geospatial reference for each feature (point, line, polygon) - what is each feature - What is the spatial relationships of each feature with the neighborhood As discussed above, the geospatial data is expected to have a capability to manage the maritime boundaries. The maritime boundaries were considered as spatial data that can be manipulated within a GIS. Three requirements for this are spatial information (where), attribute data (what) and spatial relationship of each feature (neighbourhood). These conditions are met by the declarations of the coastal state in applying for recognition of its jurisdiction. Basic features enabling GIS manipulation of the data are the points (basepoints, geographic features serving as points such as island, turning point of baseline, etc.), line (baselines), and polygon (e.g. islands, mainland, etc.). These features are accompanied by their attributes, and finally GIS relates the feature to neighbouring features. Basic universal operations in GIS have been used to define basepoints (plotting), generate baselines (drawing), define maritime zones (envelope of arcs, buffering) and delimit maritime boundaries (distance computation and plotting).

The requirements above have to be known in order to apply the operation in GIS. In maritime boundaries, the conditions can be applied by defining the maritime jurisdiction of a coastal state complies with the UNCLOS 1982. There are many spatial operations and analysis in GIS which are useful for maritime boundaries delimitation and management. There are buffering operation and overlaying operation (union, intersection). According to Dr. David Liu (2007), the definition of

buffering operation is delineation of a zone around the feature of interest within a given distance. For a point feature, it is simply a circle with its radius equal to the buffer distance. One of the applications of the buffer operation on line is to delineate area of the breadth of territorial sea set at 12 nm from the baseline, EEZ at 200 nm and contiguous zone at 24 nm from the baseline.

Figure 3. Buffering Operation (Reference: research.eeescience.utoledo.edu/lees/Teaching/EEES4760.../Feb5.ppt) 3.2 Geospatial data in Maritime Boundary Management Maritime boundary data as mentioned above come from many sources (institutions, universities, adjacent countries, internet, etc) and many types of data. Indonesia cq. BAKOSURTANAL with its Center for Boundary Mapping always attempt to find strategic to manage all the boundaries data to support maintaining not only the maritime boundary but also land boundary. As Australia has developed Australian Maritime Boundaries Information System (AMBIS), the Center for Boundary Mapping BAKOSURTANAL is on the process to develop its own application which is called Indonesian Land Boundary and Maritime Boundary Information System (ILMBIS). All the data is put into the database and build information system based on the database. The database can also help for maritime boundaries management. Because it manages all the maritime boundaries data either spatial data with its attributes or textual data and it is updated whenever there is new results from the new maritime negotiation with other countries. In order to establish the information system, the important phase is the collection of the maritime boundary data as the basis of the database. Those data can be compiled from many source with many types of data such different type (raster and vector data), different file format of data (shp, dxf, pnt, txt, etc) and different spasial reference system. Database that contains data with spatial data common to called geodatabase or spatial database. As discussed above the data (spatial data and textual data) could be data from survey with its own file types, Indonesian basepoints and archipelagic baseline, geographical coordinates of maritime boundaries which are negotiated with neighboring countries, historical

documents, some legislation related to maritime boundaries, etc. One of the reason why we put all data for information system in database (in this case geodatabase) format is to make the maritime boundaries data more manageable, for example we can relative easily updated the spatial with its attributes or textual data whenever there is new results from the maritime negotiation with other countries. First of all, the data should be converted into the digital format and known type files which can be read in GIS, and defined georeference that used for that data. Maritime boundaries information system can then be established using the available database and geoprocessing such buffering, overlay and other can be utilize to create new dataset of data and add more information value to the data. The Indonesian maritime boundaries information system is developed to be user friendly so that decision makers or everyone who is interested in knowing the Indonesian maritime boundaries can employ it easily. The Indonesian maritime boundaries information system is expected to support the decision makers in maintaining the country and can support them in negotiating the maritime boundaries with other countries. Using the mentioned information system, the decision makers could see and analyze which boundaries need to be solved quickly, which boundaries in dispute area, which boundaries are finish, etc. They also could use spatial operation such as overlay with other layer or do buffer operation or do some spatial analysis to analyze more on the boundaries. The application is the same with other application needs to be more enhance to fulfill the need of the global users.
On March 2009, the Government of the Republic of Indonesia presented its first partial submission for the extended continental shelf in respect of the area of North West of Sumatra. Delimitation of the extended Continental Shelf Regime employs bathymetric, geomorphic and geologic, geodetic datums which also require geospatial documentation. The geodatabase was submitted together with this partial submission. The GIS data which contains the database was prepared to support the submission. All the data either the raw data from the oceanographic and geophysical surveys, treaties related to agreement between Indonesia and India, Report of survey, result of data processing, etc were stored in one geodatabase follows the database structure which has been designed for the submission of the extended continental shelf.

The mentioned information system has successfully addressed the application of geospatial data for maritime boundary management with some more enhancements. IV. Challenges Indonesia still attempt to enhance the information system with better algorithm and better quality of data and also validation of data. The recent application is considered as passive application; it could be an active application with better algorithm and better performance so many spatial operations can be applied on it. The task for developing the information system of maritime boundaries is now done by BAKOSURTANAL cq. Center for Boundary Mapping but the task is not only for BAKOSURTANAL but also for all related institution, universities, etc. It should need a decree from President on this task because this information system is a vital component so that every related institution, universities, etc could support the establishment of the application. One of the challenges in building the application is the limitation of the human resources which are capable this application.
V. Conclusion

Indonesia has experienced growing its area significantly since TZMKO 1939 until the application of UNCLOS 1982. Indonesia with its large maritime area should find strategic

to maintain the boundaries. Indonesia has always attempt to maintain its maritime boundaries through many ways such as maritime negotiations with neighboring countries, sea surveys and maritime research, etc. Many maritime negotiations have been done with some results in form of documents or maps with geographic coordinates. All the geospatial data is set into the database as the basis for the development of the Indonesian Maritime Boundaries Information System. Some enhancements are needed to have a better application on the information system and the application is expected to give useful supports for the decision makers to analyze the boundaries and support them in negotiation with neighboring countries. The geospatial database and the information system are expected to have the capability of managing and maintaining the maritime boundaries.

VI. References 1. Kepala BAKOSURTANAL, Yurisdiksi Perairan Indonesia, 2008 2. Patmasari, T, Artanto, E, Lokita, S, The Indonesian Archipelagic Baselines: Technical And Legal Issues And The Changing Of Environment, Pusat Pemetaan Batas Wilayah, BAKOSURTANAL, 2008 www.gmat.unsw.edu.au/ablos/.../Session6-Paper2-Patmasari.pdf was accessed on 12 July 2009 3. Palmer, Harold D. and Pruett, L. GIS Applications in Maritime Boundary Delimitation. Proceeding of ESRI User Conference, 2630 July 1999. http://gis.esri.com/library/userconf/proc99/proceed/papers/pap938/p938.htm was accessed on 8 July 2009. 4. Liu, David, Introduction to GIS, the LEES Lab, 2008. research.eeescience.utoledo.edu/lees/Teaching/EEES4760.../Feb5.ppt was accessed on 15 July 2009.