Darius Bartlett is an earth scientist and geomorphologist by training, has been teaching and researching at the interface between GIS and coastal zone science and management in the Department of Geography at the University College Cork in Ireland for over a quarter-century, and is a past director of the department’s MSc in GIS and remote sensing and the MSc in applied coastal and marine management taught programs. As a corresponding member of the Commission on Coastal Systems of the International Geographical Union, he helped establish the CoastGIS Biennial Symposium Series, in partnership with Ron Furness (then at the Australian Hydrographic Office and chair of the International Cartographic Association’s Commission on Coastal Mapping), and hosted the first meeting as a collaboration between the two organisations in Cork in 1995 (the 12th meeting in the series was held in Cape Town in April 2015). He is the co-editor of Marine and Coastal Geographical Information Systems (with Dawn Wright, Taylor & Francis, 2000) and GIS for Coastal Zone Management (with Jennifer Smith, CRC Press, 2005). Louis Celliers is employed by the CSIR in a dual role as a principal researcher in, and heads up the Coastal Systems Research Group of the Natural Resources and the Environment Business Unit. He completed his graduate (BSc Agric) and postgraduate studies (MSc Agric) at the University of Pretoria in 1998, followed by his PhD in marine ecology at the University of Natal, South Africa in 2001. The responsibilities of his portfolio include the integration of coastal and marine science with management of the coastal area by the three spheres of government in South Africa. His research interests and profes- sional development strongly favour an approach that guides, integrates and translates good science to the benefit of society through the maintenance of natural systems. His main research interests, and focus of his published work, are in the area