Development Of Marine Spatial Planning Research Articles

New development of marine spatial planning in China: problems and policy suggestions on the implementation of National Plan for Main Functional Zones of Oceans

PurposeThe focus of this paper is to further improve the implementation safeguard measures of the National Plan for Main Functional Zones of Ocean (NPMFZO) based on the implementation status of the national marine main functional area plan after the promulgation of the existing marine planning implementation safeguard measures, aiming at the problems existing in the implementation of the plan, to help the implementation of the plan more effective.Design/methodology/approachThis paper reviews the historical process of the preparation and implementation of NPMFZO, analyzes the problems existing in the implementation of this plan, and puts forward some measures and suggestions under the background of the new national territory planning system.FindingsIn the new period, the authors should focus on building the evaluation system of planning implementation, strengthening the coordination with other plans, improving the supporting policies of planning and ensuring the effective implementation of the main functional zoning of oceans under the territorial spatial planning system.Originality/valueThis paper reviews some problems existing in the implementation of the NPMFZO and puts forward policy suggestions to ensure the implementation of the plan in the new period.

Integrated Management of Coastal Zones in Venezuela

In 1999, Venezuela began a Pilot Project for Coastal Marine Areas, establishing a Technical Unit in the now-defunct Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources. During the last 21 years, the foundations were laid for the Integrated Coastal Zones Management, approving a Coastal Zones Law in 2001 and developing a comprehensive Planning and Management Plan for Coastal Zones, concluded in 2014, which has not yet been approved. Even though, in practice, there is still no adequate institutional structure to attend to the integrated management of maritime and island spaces from a multidisciplinary perspective, these two instruments lay the foundations for the Integrated Coastal Zone Management and the development of Marine Spatial Planning. This paper seeks to analyze the reality of the management of coastal and marine zones in Venezuela during the last two decades (period 1999-2020), highlighting the initiatives developed to organize the necessary institutionality to execute the planning, zoning and integrated management processes that will promote the sustainability of coastal and marine spaces. The methodology used focuses on the analysis of the temporal evolution of the processes and instruments developed for the public management of the coastal and marine areas of the country.

Iberoamerican Contribution for the Achievement of the Objectives of the Roadmap to Accelerate Marine Spatial Planning Processes Worldwide

Since 1997, IOC-UNESCO has been developing and applying the concepts of coastal and marine management and planning, as part of its institutional strategy. The conclusions of the first international conference on marine spatial planning (MSP) in 2006 led to the publication of the first step-by-step guide to support IOC-UNESCO’s Member States in the development of marine spatial plans. IOC-UNESCO and the European Commission committed themselves in 2017 to promote the development of MSP at global level through a roadmap (MSProadmap) open to all countries of the world. Ibero-American countries are active beneficiaries of this roadmap and the MSPglobal Initiative, in its pilot cases in the Western Mediterranean and the Southeast Pacific. The objective is to support the implementation of actions to advance national planning processes considering transboundary aspects in favor of institutional exchange and cooperation at regional level. This article puts into context the present and future joint work of the IOC-UNESCO and its Ibero-American Member States, in line with the commitments and objectives of the Agenda 2030 and the Ocean Decade (2021-2030).

Enabling stakeholder participation in marine spatial planning: the Bangladesh experience

ABSTRACT The article explores stakeholder participation in marine spatial planning with particular reference to Bangladesh, a country which has committed to developing such an ocean management approach but remains at an early stage in the process. A contextual overview of the marine environment, resources and economic activities within the maritime areas of Bangladesh is provided. Definitions and concepts of marine spatial planning are critically discussed and the need to identify and understand the roles, expectations and interests of diverse stakeholders to deliver successful implementation emphasised. An overview and synthesis of a survey of maritime stakeholders in Bangladesh is provided with a view to enhancing understanding of their engagement processes, relationships and conflicts. Recommendations to reconcile conflicting uses and help facilitate the development of marine spatial planning in Bangladesh and potentially the Bay of Bengal more widely.

Shared values for the marine environment – developing a culture of practice for marine spatial planning

ABSTRACTThough still relatively new, the development of marine spatial planning has been based on the on the premise that as a rational planning process, it can be applied following universal principles and steps informed by land-based inspired theoretical underpinnings. However, within this process, differences between marine and terrestrial environments are being overlooked, potentially affecting the way in which the marine environment is understood and valued, and the development of a culture of practice for, and specific to, marine spatial planning. By framing planning as a cultural construct, this paper aims to explore the extent to which land-based rationales are affecting the development of a marine spatial planning culture of practice, with its own ethos and shared values. A culturalised planning model adapted from [Knieling, J. and Othengrafen, F. (2015). Planning culture—a concept to explain the evolution of planning policies and processes in Europe? European Planning Studies, 23(11), 2133–2147] is used as a framework. Whilst acknowledging the importance of the contributions from land-based planning and the ecological sciences, the findings suggest that those unconscious beliefs and perceptions affecting society’s understanding of the marine environment should contribute to informing shared values for marine spatial planning practice.

Characterizing and predicting the distribution of Baltic Sea flounder (Platichthys flesus) during the spawning season

Identification of essential fish habitats (EFH), such as spawning habitats, is important for nature conservation, sustainable fisheries management and marine spatial planning. Two sympatric flounder (Platichthys flesus) ecotypes are present in the Baltic Sea, pelagic and demersal spawning flounder, both displaying ecological and physiological adaptations to the low-salinity environment of this young inland sea. In this study we have addressed three main research questions: 1) What environmental conditions characterize the spatial distribution and abundance of adult flounder during the spawning season? 2) What are the main factors defining the habitats of the two flounder ecotypes during the spawning season? 3) Where are the potential spawning areas of flounder? We modelled catch per unit of effort (CPUE) of flounder from gillnet surveys conducted over the southern and central Baltic Sea in the spring of 2014 and 2015 using generalized additive models. A general model included all the stations fished during the survey while two other models, one for the demersal and one for the pelagic spawning flounder, included only the stations where each flounder ecotype should dominate. The general model captured distinct ecotype-specific signals as it identified dual salinity and water depth responses. The model for the demersal spawning flounder revealed a negative relation with the abundance of round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) and a positive relation with Secchi depth and cod abundance. Vegetation and substrate did not play an important role in the choice of habitat for the demersal ecotype. The model for the pelagic spawning flounder showed a negative relation with temperature and bottom current and a positive relation with salinity. Spatial predictions of potential spawning areas of flounder showed a decrease in habitat availability for the pelagic spawning flounder over the last 20years in the central part of the Baltic Sea, which may explain part of the observed changes in populations' biomass. We conclude that spatiotemporal modelling of habitat availability can improve our understanding of fish stock dynamics and may provide necessary biological knowledge for the development of marine spatial plans.

Greening offshore wind with the Smart Wind Chart evaluation tool

Abstract. The development of offshore wind farms (OWFs) and the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) comprise two main elements for the production of clean energy, and the simultaneous maintenance and protection of biodiversity in the Mediterranean and Black seas. Successful, efficient, and sustainable coupling of these two aspects presumes that the criteria for selecting suitable locations for the deployment of OWFs should not only include technical-engineering terms (e.g. high wind energy efficiency, bottom suitability, inland infrastructures) but also ecological–environmental considerations (e.g. the least possible impact on biodiversity, ecosystem functioning) and socio-economic aspects (e.g. effects on coastal and marine activities, development of marine spatial planning). In the context of the FP7 CoCoNet project, the integration between OWFs and MPAs is based on four main steps: (i) the identification of existing (networks of) MPAs focusing on the biodiversity distribution patterns and current legislation, (ii) the coupling of offshore wind potential within networks of MPAs, (iii) the evaluation of the knowledge gained up to date and the theoretical approaches at the two pilot sites of the Mediterranean and Black sea basins, and (iv) the development of the "Smart Wind Chart", a convenient and rational tool addressed to scientists and policy makers for the evaluation of maritime policy management schemes. The latter step comprises the core of this work.

Valuing the health benefits of physical activities in the marine environment and their importance for marine spatial planning

The marine environment provides a number of services which contribute to human well-being including the provision of food, regulation of climate and the provision of settings for cultural gains. To ensure these services continue to be provided, effective management is required and is being strategically implemented through the development of marine spatial plans. These plans require an understanding of the costs and benefits associated with alternative marine uses and how they contribute to human well-being. One benefit which is often difficult to quantify is the health benefit of engaging with the marine environment. To address this, the research develops an approach which can estimate the contribution aquatic physical activities makes to quality adjusted life years (QALYs) in monetary and non-monetary terms. Using data from the Health Survey for England, the research estimates that physical activities undertaken in aquatic environments at a national level provides a total gain of 24,853 QALYs. A conservative estimate of the monetary value of a QALY gain of this magnitude is £176 million. This approach provides estimates of health benefits which can be used in more comprehensive impact assessments, such as cost-benefit analysis, to compare alternative marine spatial plans. The paper concludes by discussing future steps.

Towards a spatially explicit risk assessment for marine management: Assessing the vulnerability of fish to aggregate extraction

Management of human activities in the marine environment increasingly requires spatially explicit risk assessments that link the occurrence and magnitude of a pressure to information on the sensitivity of the environment. We developed a marine spatial risk assessment framework for the UK continental shelf assessing the vulnerability of 11 fish and shellfish species to aggregate extraction. We calculated a sensitivity index (SI) using life-history characteristics and modelled species distributions on the UK shelf using long-term monitoring data and indicator kriging. Merging sensitivity indices and predicted species distributions allowed us to map the sensitivity of the selected fish to aggregate extraction. The robustness of the sensitivity map was affected primarily by widespread species with a low to medium level of sensitivity, while highly sensitive species with more restricted distributions had a limited effect on the overall sensitivity. The highest sensitivity in the case study occurred in coastal regions, and where nursery and spawning areas of four important commercial species occur. To test the framework, we overlaid the estimated sensitivity map with the occurrence of aggregate extraction activity in inshore waters, including sediment plume estimations, to describe species vulnerability to dredging. We conclude that our spatially explicit risk assessment framework can be applied to other ecosystem components and pressures at different spatial scales and it is therefore a promising tool that can support the sustainable development of marine spatial plans.

Modelling the spatial distribution of plaice ( Pleuronectes platessa), sole ( Solea solea) and thornback ray ( Raja clavata) in UK waters for marine management and planning

Species distribution maps are needed for ecosystem-based marine management including the development of marine spatial plans. If such maps are based on predictive models then modelling procedures should aim to maximise validation success, and any uncertainty in the predictions needs to be made explicit. We developed a predictive modelling approach to produce robust maps of the distributions of selected marine species at a regional scale. We used 14 years of survey data to map the distributions of plaice, sole and thornback ray in three hydrographic regions comprising parts of the Irish Sea, Celtic Sea and the English Channel with the help of the hybrid technique regression kriging, which combines regression models with geostatistical tools. For each species–region combination we constructed logistic Generalized Linear Models (GLMs) based on presence–absence data using the environmental variables: depth, bottom temperature, bed shear stress and sediment type, as predictors. We selected GLMs using the mean squared error of prediction (MSEP) estimated by cross-validation then conducted a geostatistical analysis of the residuals to incorporate spatial structure in the predictions. In general, we found that species occurrence was positively related to shallow areas, a bed shear stress of between 0 and 1.5 N/m 2, and the presence of sandy sediment. Predicted species occurrence probabilities were in good agreement with survey observations. This modelling framework selects environmental models based on predictive ability and considers the effect of spatial autocorrelation on predictions, together with the simultaneous presentation of observations, associated uncertainties, and predictions. The potential benefit of these distribution maps to marine management and planning is discussed.

A proposed multiple-use zoning scheme for the Irish Sea.

This paper demonstrates a multiple-use zoning scheme approach to the management of marine activities at a regional sea scale. The zoning scheme is based on existing legally permitted and permissible mechanisms within the Irish Sea and is designed to inform the development of marine spatial planning (MSP). The scheme indicates visually and descriptively the extent to which the existing planning and governance framework is able, or unable, to meet the increasing pressures of activities and developments within the marine environment. In order to test the robustness of the zoning scheme, several scenarios were developed and assessed against the de facto zonation methodology. The Irish Sea Pilot's collated data on the presence of marine landscapes was used as a case study example.