| Summary: | As the global climate is changing dramatically, Northern communities are facing a multitude of challenges including changing weather patterns, sea level rise and invasive species. To cope with the recent climatic changes - many of which present great uncertainties to livelihoods - strategies should be developed to plan and adapt for the future. Iceland has recently launched marine spatial planning (MSP) endeavours, and two of the first planning processes have been conducted. MSP presents opportunities for authorities, stakeholders, and the public to come together to forge a sustainable path ahead for marine areas that are under increasing pressure from human activities. MSP aims at ecosystem-based management of ocean resources that brings different stakeholders and the public together to discuss their conflicts of interest and forge a sustainable path forward. Public participation is a crucial element of MSP to make it democratically legitimate and sustainable in the long-term. However, MSP comes with its own considerable challenges as it attempts to engage stakeholders and the general public in decisions about an ‘invisible’ space largely beneath the surface of the sea. MSP was formally introduced by law in Iceland in 2018 and two projects were initiated in the Westfjords and Eastfjords in 2019, with one further planned in Skjálfandi Bay. This dissertation explores MSP in Iceland in three research articles. In paper I, the uncertainties of the environmental changes in the Westfjords are explored in conjunction with the multitude of societal challenges to coastal and marine planning in Iceland. Data from the planning documents as well as from semi-structured interviews and a workshop conducted in the Westfjords are analysed and discussed to establish how environmental changes and the societal context set the scene for Icelandic MSP. To assess the scope and depth of public participation in the Icelandic MSP process, paper II presents data that was collected through participant observation, unstructured and semi- ...
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