Policy Brief: Maritime spatial planning and land-sea interactions

Maritime spatial planning (MSP) is a process that encompasses the analysis and organisation of human activities in marine areas to achieve ecological, economic and social objectives. According to the European Commission’s Directive on MSP, European Union (EU) coastal states are obliged to develop national maritime spatial plans by 31 March 2021 at the latest. These plans need to fulfil several requirements, including taking account of land-sea interactions (LSI), following an ecosystem-based approach, ensuring coherence between MSP and other processes, and enabling transboundary cooperation between EU Member States.

The MSP Directive requires that LSI are taken into account to promote sustainable and integrated development and management of human activities at sea. Alignment between maritime and terrestrial spatial planning should be achieved through consistency of policies, plans and decisions. However, stakeholders engaged in MSP experience significant challenges in comprehending and working with LSI.

This policy brief sets out to support planners and policy officers in making well-informed decisions when working with LSIs, in the context of MSP, regionally, nationally and across borders. It does so by presenting one possible way of dealing with the complexity of LSI within MSP.

Documents

Policy Brief MSP-LSI.pdf

  • Acrobat Document | 6.45MB