An issue-oriented framework for Marine Spatial Planning—A case study of Koh Lan, Thailand

科学合理的海域空间评价单元划分是各类海洋空间监测、评价、规划和管理的基础工作，对于保护海洋生态环境，实现海洋资源的可持续开发利用具有重大现实意义。然而，海洋的流动性、开放性、边界模糊性等特征，导致海洋空间评价单元划分较陆地而言更为复杂、困难。以福建省东山湾为例，提出一种适用于小尺度海域的空间评价单元划分技术方案，通过从化学属性、物理属性、生物学属性三个方面构建海域空间生态属性划分指标体系，进行空间分类评价，运用插值、叠加分析等GIS技术将东山湾划分为67个基本空间评价单元。研究结果不仅能为进一步划定东山湾海洋空间规划提供技术支持，同时为其他小尺度海域生态监测、评价、规划和管理提供科学参考。;For the sustainable development and utilization of marine resources, and protection of marine ecological environment, coastal countries have successively implemented marine spatial planning (MSP). MSP is considered as an important marine management tool, which is an indispensable part of marine ecological civilization construction in China. Scientific and reasonable division of marine spatial units is the basic work of marine spatial monitoring, evaluation, planning and management, which is of great practical significance for the protection of marine ecological environment and the sustainable development of marine resources. However, the characteristics of the ocean, such as mobility, openness and boundary ambiguity, make the division of marine spatial units more complex and difficult than that of land. In this study, we collect a large number of data from environmental monitoring sites in Dongshan Bay. Based on the comprehensive and detailed data which can capture ecological environment status, we propose a technical scheme of spatial evaluation units division which is suitable for fine-scale sea areas. The scheme constructs the index system for the division of marine spatial evaluation units based on the physical, biological and chemical elements. Combined with GIS technology such as interpolation and spatial overlay analysis, Dongshan Bay is divided into 67 basic spatial evaluation units, which is a more accurate and scientific division of marine spatial units. On the basis of marine spatial units, local government can carry out the marine spatial monitoring, evaluation, planning and management. The marine environmental protection strategies and marine exploitation activities can be formulated for the sea areas with different environmental endowments by considering the local conditions. This division approach can not only provide technical support for the MSP of Dongshan Bay, but also can be a supplement of spatial units division approach for marine spatial monitoring, evaluation, planning and management. This division approach is suitable for fine-scale sea areas, but it is also applicable to large and medium-scale sea areas where complete and detailed environmental monitoring data can be obtained. The technical scheme of marine spatial units division proposed in this study has a wide application prospect.

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) in Vietnam has an ecosystem-based approach. It allocates and designs a balanced and rational marine space for sustainable marine development for economic, social, and ecological purposes. The four primary targets of the MSP are related to socio-economic development, ensuring national defense - security, rights and interests at sea; ecological balance maintenance and environment protection; sustainable marine management. MSP is defined to 2030, with a vision to 2050, based on five viewpoints and ten basic principles. The MSP framework consists of 10 basic activities: Strengthening institutions and policies to create a legal corridor; organizing and enhancing the capacity of management to implement MSP; establishing financial sources and mechanisms for MSP; participation of stakeholders and scientists; establishment of MSP; appraise and approve the MSP; licensing and revocation of licenses to use marine space; harmonize and minimize conflicts of interest in the maritime area use; MSP monitoring and evaluation; MSP adjustment. These activities are arranged in a 5-step cycle. According to MSP, the allocation of marine space is classified into four main groups of use sectors: Marine economic development, conservation, and protection of nature; particular use; reserved area. Depending on the MSP levels, the sectors of marine spatial use can be divided in more detail. MSPs are proposed to be decentralized into three groups: National, regional, and local. Each MSP level has an accompanying planning map at an appropriate scale. Each MSP level has relevant authorities responsible for establishment, submission, approval and implementation.

Lessons learned in marine governance: Case studies of marine spatial planning practice in the U.S.

Coastal and marine areas represent an increasingly important and relevant action space for spatial planning. However, to a large extent marine (or maritime) spatial planning has emerged separately from terrestrial spatial planning, constituting its own epistemic community. In particular, previous studies indicate that Marine Spatial Planning often follows an expert-driven resource management rationale focused on sea-use regulation. This paper examines practices of Marine Spatial Planning and Integrated Coastal Zone Management at the German North Sea coast. The paper focuses in particular on the engagement of spatial planners with these practices and their perception of their role therein. We seek to understand what form spatial planning at the coast and at sea currently takes and how this might develop in the future in response to current and anticipated policy developments. We argue for the necessity of a communicative, cross-sectoral approach to spatial planning at sea, providing a spatial vision for the future that extends from the Exclusive Economic Zone to encompass both the coastal waters of the federal states and the land-sea interface in a substantive manner.

Exploring the potential of theory-based evaluation to strengthen marine spatial planning practice

In 2022, the European Commission adopted the REPower EU package which proposes to further increase the 2030 target for renewables from 40 % to 45 % and revise the Renewable Energy Directive to accelerate permitting. Moreover, the European Offshore Renewable Energy Strategy estimates to have an installed capacity of at least 60 GW of offshore wind and at least 1 GW of ocean energy by 2030, reaching 300 GW and 40 GW of installed capacity, respectively, by 2050, which would require less than 3% of the European maritime space.
 The marine environment is an ecosystem that supports a set of uses and human activities, contributing to economic and social development. Most of the uses and activities require the use of maritime space, either temporarily or permanently, increasing the potential for conflict with existing and traditional marine uses. The European Directive 2014/89/UE establishes a framework for marine spatial planning (MSP) and requires the competent authorities in each Member State to develop national maritime spatial plans, analysing and organizing human activities in marine areas, applying ecosystem-based approach, involving stakeholders, in order to achieve ecological, economic and social objectives. Moreover, this MSP framework not only intends to mitigate possible present and future spatial conflicts but also contemplates the emerging sectors and the most recent technological development in the sea. 
 In the context of the EU-funded SAFEWave project (https://www.safewave-project.eu/), the different National Maritime Spatial Plans in Europe and how the Marine Renewable Energies (MRE) have been considered or integrated in different national plans have been analysed (i.e. Spain, France, Ireland, Portugal and United Kingdom). The outcome of this analysis has identified: (i) the approaches to implementation of MSP plans vary by country and sometimes within countries; (ii) differences in the stakeholder or public involvement in MSP (ii) differences in national MRE targets; (ii) different strategies and priorities for raising the issue of MRE within the national MSP; (iii) for which countries MREs are strategics in their national plans; (iv) conflicts with other uses (i.e. Marine Protected Areas), and mechanisms to solve them; (vi) technical, socio-economic and environmental factors considered for MRE polygons identification in national MSP; (vii) the development of national MSP requires a review of the authorization or concession procedures for the allocation or reservation of areas for MREs. 
 Ultimately, comparing the integration of national plans for marine renewable energy (MRE) into national marine spatial plans (MSP) can inform and guide management strategies, legislation, and policies to support management actions and efficiently plan future MRE deployments.

Marine spatial planning (MSP) has rapidly become the most widely used integrated, place-based management approach in the marine environment. Monitoring and evaluation of MSP is key to inform best practices, adaptive management and plan iteration. While standardised evaluation frameworks cannot be readily applied, accounting for evaluation essentials such as the definition of evaluation objectives, indicators and stakeholder engagement of stakeholders is a prerequisite for meaningful evaluation outcomes. By way of a literature review and eleven practical MSP case studies, we analysed present day trends in evaluation approaches and unravelled the adoption of evaluation essentials for three categories for monitoring and evaluation for plan making, plan outcomes, and policy implementation. We found that at a global scale the focus of MSP evaluation has shifted over the past decade from evaluating predominantly plan outcomes towards the evaluation of plan making. Independent of the scope of the evaluation, evaluation approaches varied greatly from formal and structured processes, building for instance on MSP goals and objectives, to informal processes based on stakeholder interviews. We noted a trend in the adoption of formalised approaches where MSP evaluations have increasingly become linked to MSP policy goals and objectives. However, the enhanced use of MSP objectives and indicators did not result in a more straightforward reporting of outcomes, e.g. such as the achievement of specific MSP objectives. Overall, we found weak linkages between defined MSP objectives, indicators and available monitoring data. While the apparent shift towards a focus on objectives is promising, we highlight the need of fit-for-purpose monitoring data to enable effective evaluation of those objectives. Hence, effective MSP and adaptive management processes require customised and concurrent monitoring and evaluation strategies and procedures. We argue that evaluation processes would also benefit from a better understanding of the general environmental, socio-economic and socio-cultural effects of MSP. Therefore, to understand better environmental effects of MSP, we praise that forthcoming MSP processes need to deepen the understanding and considerations of cause-effect pathways between human activities and changes of ecosystem state through the adoption of targeted cumulative effects assessments.

Cumulative impact assessments highlight the benefits of integrating land-based management with marine spatial planning

Over the last 5–10 years, marine spatial planning (MSP) has emerged as a new management regime for national and international waters and has already attracted a substantial body of multi-disciplinary research on its goals and policy processes. This paper argues that this literature has generally lacked deeper reflexive engagement with the emerging system of governance for our seas that has meant that many of MSP's core concepts, assumptions and institutional arrangements have not been subject rigorous intellectual debate. In an attempt to initiate such an approach, this article explores the relationship between MSP and its land-based cousin, terrestrial spatial planning (TSP). While it is recognized that there are inherent limitations to a comparison of these two systems, it is argued that the tradition of social science debate over the purpose and processes of TSP can be used as a useful stimulus for a more rigorous reflection of such issues as they relate to MSP. The article therefore explores some of the parallels between MSP and TSP and then discusses some of the key intellectual traditions that have shaped TSP and the implications these may have for future marine planning practice. The article concludes with a number of potentially useful new avenues that may form the basis of a critical research agenda for MSP.

Effective practice in marine spatial planning: A participatory evaluation of experience in Southern England

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) offers the possibility of democratising management of the seas. MSP is, however, increasingly implemented as a form of post-political planning, dominated by the logic of neoliberalism, and a belief in the capacity of managerial-technological apparatuses to address complex socio-political problems, with little attention paid to issues of power and inequality. There is growing concern that MSP is not facilitating a paradigm shift towards publicly engaged marine management, and that it may simply repackage power dynamics in the rhetoric of participation to legitimise the agendas of dominant actors. This raises questions about the legitimacy and inclusivity of participatory MSP. Research on stakeholder engagement within MSP has predominately focused on assessing experiences of active MSP participants and has not evaluated the democratic or inclusive nature of these processes. Adopting the Northeast Ocean Planning initiative in the US as a case study, this paper provides the first study of exclusion and non-participation of stakeholders in an MSP process. Three major issues are found to have had an impact on exclusion and non-participation: poor communication and a perception that the process was deliberately exclusionary; issues arising from fragmented governance, territorialisation and scale; and lack of specificity regarding benefits or losses that might accrue from the process. To be effective, participatory MSP practice must: develop mechanisms that recognise the complexity of socio-spatial relationships in the marine environment; facilitate participation in meaningful spatial decision-making, rather than in post-ideological, objective-setting processes; and create space for debate about the very purpose of MSP processes.

Any form of marine spatial planning implies an exercise of state power and thus requires a legal framework. Here, we explore the opportunities within, and limitations of, existing legal provisions for marine spatial planning and discuss the importance of legally binding marine spatial planning tools. We examine the law of the sea, as codified in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Whereas marine spatial planning is a comparatively young form of ocean governance, the law of the sea dates back to the earliest times of navigation. The law of the sea does not regulate marine spatial planning, but it sets out some limits to planning activities. The attribution of specific powers under the law of the sea is often seen as an impediment to an integrated transboundary planning. On the other hand, it provides for a set of rules, and thus, a certain international consensus, from which planning can start. We also consider the European Union’s Marine Spatial Planning Directive. Unlike the law of the sea, the European Union Marine Spatial Planning Directive specifically encourages member states to do marine planning. However, the Directive is nevertheless vague in its provisions, leaving considerable leeway to states for the implementation of its principles. The Directive’s interaction and overlap with other binding and non-binding documents such as policies and roadmaps is not always clearly defined. For a marine planner, this chapter sets out the basic rules of the international law of the sea and how the European Union further developed these rules in its legislation. It provides a legal foundation for national marine plans, but is certainly not a ready-made guideline. The international and European rules are in dire need of adaptation, if not amendment.

Coastal and Marine Management – Navigating islands of data

of fishery resources and degradation of marine biodiversity are attributed to two main reasons, i.e., overfishing and threats from intensified land-based human activities. Marine spatial planning (MSP) can be an important tool to mitigate the above-referred threats thereby conserving the fishery resources and biodiversity. Marine spatial planning is a typical ecosystem approach that can properly demarcate marine resources spatially and temporally to a variety of human activities, and meet multiple economic, social and ecological objectives. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are basic components in MSP for biodiversity conservation and fishery sustainability. Two case studies show how MSP can harmonize multiple uses of marine areas concerned and avoid conflicts; however for protection of some migratory species small or isolated natural reserves are not enough. In order to form a complete ecological system for marine biodiversity conservation and management, MSP needs to be combined with other planning instruments such as spatial planning of coastal zones and pollution control planning of river basins. Furthermore, spatial and temporal landscape ecology should be addressed in MSP to accommodate the fisheries refugia requirements. To this end regional and international cooperation are indispensable, and more researches should be conducted to better understand background status of ecosystem and fishery resources, and relevant management capability in the region concerned.

The Bay of Bengal (BoB) region is under severe threat of marine pollution because of unsustainable management of human activities for the exploration of marine resources. The emergence of the concept of Blue Economy fuels the coastal states to explore more marine resources that will cause much more marine pollution in the region. Therefore, a balance between the exploration and conservation of marine resources is essential for the prevention of unsustainable use and marine pollution. Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) may be a tool for the balance between exploration and conservation of the marine resources in the BoB region. This balance approach will also facilitate to develop a sustainable Blue Economy for the coastal states of the Bay region through sustainable management and use of the marine resources. However, the current regional legal arrangements for management of ocean resources of the BoB do not provide any explicit provisions for the development of MSP in the Bay region. The current regional conventions, agreements, declarations, organisations, programmes and plans have different provisions for management of the marine resources of the BoB. Those legal regimes have several provisions that are relevant and cover different aspects of MSP. However, the current regional arrangements for the management of marine resources are not adequate for the development of MSP for sustainable use and prevention of marine pollution in the BoB. This inadequacy has significantly impacted the objective of sustainable Blue Economy in the Bay region. A uniform agreement among the coastal states is essential to develop a regional MSP in the BoB region. Development of MSP in the BoB will be an effective tool for greening the Blue Economy by sustainable use and protection of the marine environment in the Bay region.