The Coastline: Definition and Characteristics

The coastline sounds like a fact and is actually a definition. A shore moves with tide, season and storm, so mapping one requires choosing which line counts, and that choice has direct legal consequence: the maritime public domain is delimited from it, and therefore so is the boundary between what the state holds inalienably and what may be privately owned or leased. This presentation by the national geospatial institute sets out the definition and the characteristics of the trait de côte for Haiti. Its place in the September 2015 workshop is foundational rather than thematic: the papers on beach leases, on cadastring the coast and on the Les Cayes waterfront all presuppose that a defensible coastline exists to measure from, and this is the paper that says what that line is and who draws it.