Multi-Use of the Sea as a Sustainable Development Instrument in Five EU Sea Basins

Joanna Przedrzymirska,Stanisław Szultka,Daniel Depellegrin,Gesche Krause,Helena Calado,Rianne Läkamp,Christian Orobello,Eva Papaioannou,Zacharoula Kyriazi,Angela Schultz-Zehden,Kira Gee,Jacek Zaucha,Kazimierz Szefler,Martina Bocci,Vincent Onyango,Mairi Maniopoulou,Marija Lazić,Andrea Barbanti,Emiliano Ramieri,Vassiliki Vassilopoulou,Krystyna Gawlikowska­‐Hueckel ,Mario Caña Varona ,Bruce G Buchanan ,Ivana Lukić ,Bela H Buck ,Maximilian Felix Schupp ,Marta Vergílio ,Monika Agnieszka Michałek

doi:10.3390/su13158159

Abstract

This paper examines the concept of maritime multi-use as a territorial/SPATIAL governance instrument for the enhancement of sustainable development in five EU sea basins. Multi-use (MU) is expected to enhance the productivity of blue economy sectors, as well as deliver additional socio-economic benefits related to the environmental and social dimensions of sustainable development. The paper provides a definition of maritime multi-use and identifies the multi-uses with the highest potential in EU sea basins. In each sea basin, multi-use plays a different role as concerns sustainable development. For the Eastern Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, the MU focus should remain on the environmental pillar of sustainable development. In the North Sea, North Atlantic and Western Baltic Sea, addressing social sustainability seems a key precondition for success of MU in enhancement of sustainable spatial development at sea. Moreover, it has been suggested to introduce MU key global strategies such as SDGs or Macroregional strategies and action plans and to supplement maritime spatial planning with sectoral incentives and educational efforts as key vehicles supporting MU. The paper concludes by identifying aspects which, in order to inform maritime spatial planning and maritime governance regarding a more conscious application of the aforementioned concept, require further investigation. Key tasks are related to: more profound evaluation of performance of policies supporting MUs, researching the impact of MU on societal goals and on the MU costs and benefits, including external ones, and finally identifying the impact of MU on the development of various sectors and regions on land.

Highlights

Conserving and sustainably uing oceans, seas, and marine resources constitutes one of the key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations Agenda 2030 [1].The key issue in this context is an amplification of human utilization of marine space and the latter’s more extensive exploitation for economic purposes [2]
For the purpose of this paper, in order to identify the potential for various MUs in five EU sea basins, only a small amount of data has been used
Despite several encouraging policies at national level, in the examined EU sea basins, MUs were at an early stage of development, primarily in the trial and pilot phase (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Conserving and sustainably uing oceans, seas, and marine resources constitutes one of the key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations Agenda 2030 [1].The key issue in this context is an amplification of human utilization of marine space and the latter’s more extensive exploitation for economic purposes [2]. As pointed out by Medeiros, the SGDs lack policy support for spatial planning [4], a problem since maritime spatial planning (MSP) is considered a promising governance vehicle able to ensure smart trade-offs between various components of sustainable spatial development [5] In these circumstances, concepts such as multi-use (MU), co-location or co-existence have recently attracted the attention of researchers and decision makers [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20].

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Conclusion