Coastal seas play an essential role for human societies who develop many and diverse activities. These space and resource consuming activities induce an increase pressure on the environment and sometimes generate conflicting interactions among various activities. Understanding these interactions remains a challenge for research and civil society. A methodology is proposed to describe the spatial and temporal distribution of several activities in coastal sea. An application is developed in the bay of Brest (Brittany, France). Spatial, temporal, quantitative and qualitative data acquisition combines both analysis of spatio-temporal databases such as automatic identification system (AIS) databases, and results from semi-structured interviews with key-informants. The heterogeneous data collected are stored in a spatio-temporal database (STDB). First, the STDB is used with a Geographic Information System (GIS) to produce temporal snapshots of daily human activities patterns within a year. The quality of temporal and quantitative information and the nature and source of spatial information are also provided. Secondly, the STBD enables to identify, quantify and map potential uses conflicts and potential negative spatial interactions between activities in the bay of Brest.
