Proceedings of the 13 th Biennial Coastal Zone Conference Baltimore, MD July 13–17, 2003 1 SPATIALLY INTEGRATED COASTAL PERMITTING SYSTEM (SICOP) * N. Adam, F. Artigas, V. Atluri, I. Bora 1 , R. Ceberio 1 , S. Chun, A. Paliwal ** CIMIC/MERI, Rutgers University 1 New Jersey Meadowlands Comission Abstract. Local, state and federal agencies, such as NJDEP, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and local municipalities, enforce a number of regulations for the current land use and environmental legislation. Compliance to these regulations is a complex process. In New Jersey, the permit process also involves the regional planning agencies such as the New Jerse * y Meadowlands Commission (NJMC) and the New Jersey Pinelands Commission. SICOP is a joint effort between the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission (NJMC) and the Meadowlands Environmental Research Institute at Rutgers University (MERI). It acts as an ``on-line electronic environmental consultant'' that provides an effective single electronic interface for the government agencies to deliver smoother and customized permit processing services to the citizens. More specifically, SICOP provides a ``road map," that determines the exact steps required that are tailored for a particular location and activity type based on the regulatory requirements of each government agency. It is a web-based system that simplifies the long and painful process of compliance requirement identification. By simply clicking on a map or entering a few individual preferences, the required steps for obtaining permits are automatically generated along with all the necessary data and forms. Although SICOP is developed within the context of planning and permits, the research and development work undertaken in this project can be generalized and can serve as a reference model to be adopted by other agencies and services both in New Jersey and in other states. Theme: Regional Land Management – Economic Development and Public Access. 1. Introduction. Local, state and federal agencies enforce a number of regulations for the current land use and environmental legislation. Compliance to these regulations is a complex process as it involves agencies such as NJDEP, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and local municipalities. In New Jersey, the permit process also involves the regional planning agencies such as the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission (NJMC) and the New Jersey Pinelands Commission. Large development firms usually use highly skilled environmental consultants to guide their projects through the permitting process. Private citizens and small businesses are subjected to the same regulations, but may not have the resources to hire a consultant. In this project, we propose a system similar to an ``on-line electronic environmental consultant'' that will help citizens navigate the coastal wetland permitting process and help them interact with the agencies involved. We call this a Spatially Integrated Coastal Permitting System (SICOP). The proposed project builds on some of our recent research work being supported by the National Science Foundation [2 ,1 ]. The significance of this project is along the following three dimensions - (1) It helps the * This project is supported partially by a grant NA17OC2587 from NOAA. ** Project members also include: M. Alpos, D. Guo, C. Hobble, and Yue He.