Marine spatial planning


Marine spatial planning also known interchangeably as Maritime Spatial Planning, is an ocean management instrument which aids policy-makers and stakeholders in compartmentalizing sea basins within state jurisdiction according to social, ecological and economical objectives in order to make informed and coordinated decisions about how to use marine resources sustainably. MSP generally uses maps to create a more comprehensive picture of a marine area – identifying where and how an ocean area is being used and what natural resources and habitat exist. It is similar to land-use planning, but for marine waters.
Image:MSP Mass NOAA.jpg|thumb|Example of MSP off Massachusetts
Through the planning and mapping process of a marine ecosystem, planners can consider the cumulative effect of maritime industries on our seas, seek to make industries more sustainable and proactively minimize conflicts between industries seeking to utilise the same sea area. The intended result of MSP is a more coordinated and sustainable approach to how our oceans are used – ensuring that marine resources and services are utilized, but within clear environmental limits to ensure marine ecosystems remain healthy and biodiversity is conserved.

Definition and concept

The most commonly used definition of marine spatial planning was developed by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO:
The main elements of marine spatial planning include an interlinked system of plans, policies and regulations; the components of environmental management systems ; and some of the many tools that are already used for land use planning. Whatever the building blocks, the essential consideration is that they need to work across sectors and give a geographic context in which to make decisions about the use of resources, development, conservation and the management of activities in the marine environment.
Effective marine spatial planning has essential attributes:
  • Multi-objective. Marine spatial planning should balance ecological, social, economic, and governance objectives, but the over riding objective should be increased sustainability.
  • Spatially focused. The ocean area to be managed must be clearly defined, ideally at the ecosystem level - certainly being large enough to incorporate relevant ecosystem processes.
  • Integrated. The planning process should address the interrelationships and interdependence of each component within the defined management area, including natural processes, activities, and authorities.
The helps countries implement ecosystem-based management by finding space for biodiversity, conservation and sustainable economic development in marine areas. IOC-UNESCO has developed several guides, including a 10-step guide on how to get a marine spatial plan started: "Step-by-step Approach for Marine Spatial Planning toward Ecosystem-based Management"''.'' IOC-UNESCO has also developed a world-wide inventory of MSP activities.
In order for an MSP programme to be successful, there is an crucial need to secure inter- and intra-sectoral cooperations - cooperations between sectors with diverging objectives such as social, ecological and economical - in order to ensure equal fulfillment of all objectives sought to be achieved at sea.

Evaluation of Spatially managed marine areas

To evaluate how well a marine spatial plan performs, the EU FP7 project has developed a step-wise evaluation approach. This framework provides guidance on the selection, mapping, and assessment of ecosystem components and human pressures. It also addresses the evaluation of management effectiveness and potential adaptations to management. Moreover, it provides advice on the use of spatially explicit tools for practical tasks like the assessment of cumulative impacts of human pressures or pressure-state relationships. Governance is directly linked to the framework through a governance analysis that can be performed in parallel and feeds into the different steps of the framework. To help managers, MESMA has developed a .

Tools

There are a number of useful and innovative tools that can help managers implement marine spatial planning. Some include:
  • Duke University's
  • Center for Ocean Solutions'
  • Scotland's and
  • New England's

    Marine Spatial Planning in the European Union

Marine Spatial Planning within the context of the European Union is most often addressed as Maritime Spatial Planning - and thus for the sake of the section, the latter name will be used.
In the European Commission's 2002 Communications Report to the European Parliament called "Towards a Strategy to Protect and Conserve the Marine Environment", the very first mentioning of the concept Maritime Spatial Planning appears. The report urged for a need to plan sectoral activities within the sea basins in order to measure the environmental impacts and integrate protective measures. These EU-wide statements could have derived inspiration from the 4th conference of Baltic Sea Ministers for Spatial Planning and Development seeking to establish a transnational spatial planning cooperation including the management of marine and coastal areas. Maritime Spatial Planning officially became a central pillar to the European Commission's maritime policies with the publishing of the Integrated Maritime Policy in October 2007. The following year, 2008, the European Commission introduced another marine focused document called a Roadmap for Maritime Spatial Planning: Achieving Common Principles – and in 2012 further development took place when the Commission adopted a Communication on Blue Growth: Opportunities for marine and maritime sustainable growth aiming to unlock the potentials of the blue economy. After more than a decade of MSP programs within the EU, it was decided to pass an EU-wide legislation on the matter in 2014, introducing the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive. MSP is presented as a vital environmental protection instrument of the IMP, as one of the central aims are to secure Good Environmental Status which involves the conservation of clean, healthy and productive seas.

The Maritime Spatial Planning Directive

According to the European Commission the MSP Directive serves as a framework to organize the many sectoral activities and industries taking place in the sea basins surrounding the European Union, such as fishing, aquaculture, nature conservation, shipping and renewable energy installations. The main objectives of the Directive are to reduce conflicts and increase border cooperation among member states with regards to improving efficient utilization of the sea basins, encourage investments and ensuring proper protection of the marine environment.
The MSP Directive introduced requirements for Member States to establish their own maritime spatial planning strategies and implement these by 2021 - especially targeting the 22 coastal Member States.
In the context of the European Union, we can identify four central policy drivers for the implementation of Maritime Spatial Planning: environmental legislation, legislation for renewable energy, fisheries regulation and frameworks for cross-sectoral and integrated management.

MSP in the EU's marine renewable energy sector

As MSP merely is an instrument aiming to organize sectoral activities in sea bassins, a look into the renewable sector can give an understanding of the workings of MSP.
The European Commission highlights that the MSP Directive alongside the aims outlined in the Biodiversity Strategy is the primary legal framework for the achievement of the new marine renewable energy objectives within the European Union.
As the EU is pioneering in offshore wind energy, and is the world's leading actor in the development of marine renewable energy as well as possesses the world's largest installment of renewable energy sources, MSP poses a promising role for the development of marine renewable energy, as it can streamline licensing and installations, reduce conflicts among maritime users as well as increase legal security for stakeholders

Challenges of MSP in the case of EU's marine renewable energy

While MSP Directive has the potential to simplify the balancing of renewable energy and protection of nature, as it allows actors to divide the sea basins into space with different usages, the MSP Directive itself does have its weaknesses and thus cannot stand alone. The MSP Directive requires all coastal states to work out maritime spatial policies by 2021, however much discretion is left with the member states. The current EU legislation on the protection of nature, species and habitats, such as the Habitats and Birds Directives and the Water Framework Directive, possess derogation clauses, however there are no obligations for member states to actually apply these and thus balance out the creation of marine energy sources and protection of nature. It is largely recommended that the spatial choices feed into the nature preserving Directives such as the Habitats and Birds Directives and the Water Framework Directive
The cumulative effects of offshore renewable energy are uncertain, as Cumulative Impact Assessments, Strategic Environmental Assessment, and Environmental Impact Assessment often are implemented independently, why they to a large extend fail to paint a full picture of the negative impacts. The EU's MSP is criticized in this regard because when results of these assessments proves inconclusive the MSP Directive lays down the precautionary principle however without giving specification other than member states are to take "preventative measures". The usage of EIA is further criticized due to it lack of abilities to create assessments for tidal and wave energy installments. The ability to tackle the potential impacts of marine renewable energy sources such as tidal stream, wave energy and salinity gradient energy is a great concern due to uncertaint and the potential risks of sandbank erosions, underwater noise pollution from constructions, sediment starvation, industrial heat waste and physical damage to travelling species as well as aquatic environments. However, evidence show that small-scale energy project has fewer prospects of grave environmental implications, and main concerns lies with projets of large-scales.
A central challenge to the MSP within the European Union is the lack of standardized data collection and integration across databases. Therefore, improving this area of concern could help paint a greater picture of the environmental impacts and statuses across Member States' shared sea basins.
To further develop and strengthen MSP with the European Union, it is vital to improve informed policy-making on the area of ocean management. Developing quantitative and comprehensive environmental sustainability assessment tools under the Sustainable Marine Ecosystem Services projects, allows for an integration of Life Cycle Assessments and Ecosystem Service Assessments, potentially simplifying decision-making process among policy makers, as QCESA highlight the trade-offs between various sectoral activities.