Developing a Pilot Maritime Spatial Plan for the Pomeranian Bight and Arkona Basin
This report presents the result of a pilot project carried out as part of the EU-‐funded BaltSeaPlan project (2009-‐2011). A team of experts with diverse professional backgrounds worked over a period of two years to draft a pilot transboundary maritime spatial plan for a sea area in the Pomeranian...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://pure.au.dk/portal/da/publications/developing-a-pilot-maritime-spatial-plan-for-the-pomeranian-bight-and-arkona-basin(eae6a9d8-8fa9-4f55-b9c7-309b3eb15f3c).html http://www.baltseaplan.eu/index.php?cmd=download&subcmd=downloads/0_BAltSeaPlan_9final.pdf |
| Summary: | This report presents the result of a pilot project carried out as part of the EU-‐funded BaltSeaPlan project (2009-‐2011). A team of experts with diverse professional backgrounds worked over a period of two years to draft a pilot transboundary maritime spatial plan for a sea area in the Pomeranian Bight/Arkona Basin. The draft spatial plan is the result of a planning exercise which took place outside the formal planning processes as legally binding agreements already exist for the German EEZ and the territorial waters of Mecklenburg-‐Vorpommern. Working with diverse stakeholders in Poland, Germany and Sweden, the aims were (1) to identify the main conflicts of use in the pilot area, (2) bring together transboundary approaches for dealing with these, and (3) develop a draft maritime spatial plan that actively supports the principle of sustainable maritime development. Apart from generating tangible output, the pilot project was also a test case of working with the MSP planning cycle across national borders, bringing together four different planning systems and traditions in the attempt to come to joint solutions in a sea area faced with multiple pressures. In line with the MSP planning cycle (PlanCoast 2008), the first stage was to provide the necessary context for the MSP exercise by describing the natural and the socio-‐economic environment of the pilot area. Although no full SEA was carried out, available information was brought together on sea bed morphology and bathymetry, salinity, ice conditions, wind conditions, as well as natural assets such as sea birds, fish and harbour porpoise. This was complemented by a description of demographic trends, the economic situation in the respective coastal regions, international legislation affecting the pilot area, and the existing spatial planning framework in the respective countries (including regional strategies and other relevant policies). At the same time, stakeholder processes were initiated in the various countries with a view of involving stakeholders in the process of identifying conflicts in the pilot area. This involved identifying relevant stakeholders, contacting them with a short questionnaire on current uses and conflicts experienced, and stakeholder meetings at various stages of the project. The second stage was to carry out a comprehensive stocktake of current uses together with a brief overview of the trends and developments expected in these. This focused on transnational uses that extended across the entire pilot area and included shipping, nature conservation, offshore wind farming, tourism, fisheries, and sand and gravel extraction. Based on the stocktaking maps, conflicts were identified by the planning team. The stocktaking maps were then presented at stakeholder workshops carried out in Germany and Poland, where the conflicts were further discussed and refined. Particular conflicts were found to arise between nature conservation and sea uses (e.g. cables and pipelines, sand and gravel extraction), shipping and offshore wind farming, tourism and offshore wind farming, and nature conservation and fisheries. The third stage was to test various methods for spatially dealing with the conflicts identified. All these are examples only, which are presented here as potential contributions to decision support. Marxan software was successfully applied to identify potentially suitable areas for offshore wind farming and fishery zones, providing a range of scenarios that can now be further discussed and fed into the decision-‐making process. An example from Mecklenburg-‐Vorpommern illustrates the difficulties encountered in identifying suitable areas for offshore wind farming in the territorial sea. An example is also provided on how to identify spatial conflicts between seabirds and shipping. The final step was to draw up the draft spatial plan for the pilot area. This firstly meant defining general objectives for each of the uses identified in the stocktake. For shipping for example, a key objective is to promote safe and clean shipping and port development and reduce the collision risk in dangerous goods transport. For energy, a key objective is to find suitable areas for offshore wind farms. Objectives were also defined for tourism and nature conservation. Zoning then translates these general objectives into area categories, which enhance or restrict certain sea uses bearing in mind the specific potentials and opportunities and problems and risks of each sea use. To enhance compatibility with the BaltSeaPlan Vision the following types of areas were used: Priority areas: no use is allowed that would significantly constrain the use that is given priority in this area. Reservation areas: a certain use is given special weight in the process of balancing the competing interests in the area. The difference to priority areas is that it is not certain that the use receiving specific attention has absolute priority. Suitable areas: an activity is exclusively assigned to respective suitable areas which have been chosen along a range of parameters – outside of these areas the activity is not allowed and not licensable. Open use areas: no use has priority and all uses other than those restricted to suitable areas are allowed. The draft plan makes clear that not all of the conflicts identified can be dealt with by means of MSP alone and that management plans are necessary for achieving certain objectives (e.g. fishery measures in Natura 2000 areas). Nevertheless, the defined area categories can be an orientation that should be considered when drafting sectoral development concepts and when awarding subsidies. Where appropriate, the draft maritime spatial plan is therefore complemented by recommendations for sectoral planning. Internal evaluation showed the pilot project to be a success. Apart from the draft maritime spatial plan, valuable outputs include the development of a common understanding of the tasks involved in transboundary MSP and the objectives to be achieved (development of a common language), as well as the need for effective working and decision-‐making structures. But the difficulties encountered also offer important lessons. Data availability and the spatial relevance of data was one difficulty, as was the uneven distribution of partners (not every country was represented by spatial planners), insufficient time for the last planning steps, and differences in planning cultures and ‘philosophies’. Recommendations are offered for similar projects in terms of the planning process (how to work across different planning cultures effectively) and in terms of the resources required (partners, staff time, hardware, software, regular meetings, data accessibility and compatibility etc). |
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