On the establishment of the lowest astronomical tide for marine parcel commencement in peninsular Malaysia

Abstract

Tidal datum is a standard height defined by a certain phase of the tide. Tida datum is also the beginning for establishing privately owned land, state owned land, Territorial Sea, Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), and high seas boundaries. A review of previous studies shows that technical aspect is one of the major problems in marine cadastre development because there is no reference datum to implement marine administration for marine cadastre. Thus, technical aspect is needed to support marine cadastre development. Foundational to this, marine parcel is a part of space in marine administration which included air space, water column, seabed profile and subsea. It is also consisting vertical and horizontal and water tidal datum elements in marine area. The objectives of this study are to determine the tidal datum, Lowest Astronomical Tide (LAT) for Peninsular Malaysia and to analyse the stability of LAT as a datum for marine cadastre commencement. Tide datasets were processed using Total Tide Solution (TOTIS) software for computing the LAT as the reference datum for marine cadastre. Tidal epoch is from year 1992 to year 2013. Based on the analysis, the range of stability value for LAT with respect to Mean Sea Level (MSL) is -0.002 metre to -0.500 metre. Therefore, LAT is potential to be used as a reference datum for marine parcel commencement in Malaysia due to its stability and consistency as a lowest water level.