Description: The recent H2020 Blue Growth projects MARIBE and MUSES investigated the potential of a variety of different combinations of economic activities in co-location or integrated in multi-use platforms. Both projects identified barriers - including regulatory, financing, liability and insurance issues; environmental concerns; stakeholder perceptions; and lack of appropriate skills – that hamper the development of multi-use platforms. The H2020 MARIBE project concluded that further funding for multi-use demonstrations should be provided to increase investor confidence and bring multi-use through the so-called Valley of Death. The H2020 MUSES project concluded that multi-use needs to be proactively facilitated and incentivised through public regulatory bodies and respective support programmes. This paper combines and analyses results from both projects in order to identify key research gaps and actions required for the continued development of multi-use platforms, based on a structured critical review of available peer-reviewed literature on the topic as well as reports of both the MUSES and MARIBE projects. Research gaps and actions are analysed based on a multi-use platform typology to inform developers, policy makers, academia and investors for future development of multi-use at sea.

Description: Coastal seas around the world are under increasing anthropogenic pressures due to the rapid expansion of maritime industry and coastal urbanisation. Multi-use (MU) of ocean space, meaning the use of the same space by multiple resource users, has emerged as one strategy to address spatial conflicts resulting from an increasing use density. The proposed multi-use of offshore wind farms (OWF) and mariculture (MAQ) is one of the most-researched examples of such a potentially symbiotic relationship. Two decades of public and academic discourse have produced an abundance of research regarding various facets of this particular combination. Nevertheless, the latest research projects of the EUs Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme have identified a number of persistent barriers to continued multi-use development. The past and current public discourse has created a situation where technological readiness has outpaced societal readiness and the discussion is often complicated by the diversity of backgrounds and perceptions of the participants of this discourse. This study aims to dissect the common discourse on OWF and mariculture multi-use by utilising a targeted SWOT analysis approach based on stakeholder knowledge. This approach reveals two distinct narratives based around societal and economic considerations respectively. From this, we derive a set of tailor-made recommendations for policy makers and regulators as well as funding agencies, businesses and researchers.

Description: This paper examines the concept of maritime multi-use as a territorial/SPATIAL governance instrument for the enhancement of sustainable development in five EU sea basins. Multi-use (MU) is expected to enhance the productivity of blue economy sectors, as well as deliver additional socio-economic benefits related to the environmental and social dimensions of sustainable development. The paper provides a definition of maritime multi-use and identifies the multi-uses with the highest potential in EU sea basins. In each sea basin, multi-use plays a different role as concerns sustainable development. For the Eastern Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, the MU focus should remain on the environmental pillar of sustainable development. In the North Sea, North Atlantic and Western Baltic Sea, addressing social sustainability seems a key precondition for success of MU in enhancement of sustainable spatial development at sea. Moreover, it has been suggested to introduce MU key global strategies such as SDGs or Macroregional strategies and action plans and to supplement maritime spatial planning with sectoral incentives and educational efforts as key vehicles supporting MU. The paper concludes by identifying aspects which, in order to inform maritime spatial planning and maritime governance regarding a more conscious application of the aforementioned concept, require further investigation. Key tasks are related to: more profound evaluation of performance of policies supporting MUs, researching the impact of MU on societal goals and on the MU costs and benefits, including external ones, and finally identifying the impact of MU on the development of various sectors and regions on land.

Description: Coastal marine environments provide livelihoods as billions of people around the world depend greatly on sustainability efforts in the Blue Economy. In this study, we investigated how stakeholders from important Blue Economy sectors along the German North Sea coast perceive the impacts of climate change on their daily work life and the growth of the Blue Economy. In a two-stage approach we first conducted two stakeholder workshops with representatives from the regional sea food sector, science, NGOs and local authorities, in order to identify important issues linked to climate change affecting environment, society, economy and policy. In the second stage, we conducted semi-structured interviews with key knowledge holders from the Blue Economy, to evaluate and validate the most important issues identified during the first stage, and the impacts on the respective sectors. The workshop participants identified perceptible effects of climate change on their marine environment. Early career scientists showed that they possess a clear focus on measures for climate change adaptation, transdisciplinary approaches and knowledge transfer. The interviews revealed that the climate change effects could be perceived as both negative and positive, depending on the sector. Other issues, especially political decisions and developments are perceived to have a greater immediate impact on the Blue Economy than the slow progress of climate change effects. Additionally, increased human activities, in the form of new or intensified uses like marine renewable energy generation, have a greater influence and lead to conflicts between the Blue Economy sectors. Our study showed that economic and societal stakeholders in Germanys North Sea region are aware of climate change and already perceive its effects on their businesses. Synergies and conflicts between the sectors and political decisions might influence sustainable growth of the Blue Economy in highly contested regions, such as the North Sea basin, much stronger than the effects of climate change. This calls for a more flexible and adaptive approach to policymaking, taking into account the changing environmental, social and economic realities.

Description: Offshore wind power generation requires large areas of sea to accommodate its activities, with increasing claims for exclusive access. As a result, pressure is placed on other established maritime uses, such as commercial fisheries. The latter sector has often been taking a back seat in the thrust to move energy production offshore, thus leading to disagreements and conflicts among the different stakeholder groups. In recognition of the latter, there has been a growing international interest in exploring the combination of multiple maritime activities in the same area (multi-use; MU), including the re-instatement of fishing activities within, or in close proximity to, offshore wind farms (OWFs). We summarise local stakeholder perspectives from two sub-national case studies (East coast of Scotland and Germany's North Sea EEZ) to scope the feasibility of combining multiple uses of the sea, such as offshore wind farms and commercial fisheries. We combined a desk-based review with 15 semi-structured qualitative interviews with key knowledge holders from both industries, regulators, and academia to aggregate key results. Drivers, barriers and resulting effects (positive and negative) for potential multi-use of fisheries and OWFs are listed and ranked (57 factors in total). Factors are of economic, social, policy, legal, and technical nature. To date, in both case study areas, the offshore wind industry has shown little interest in multi-use solutions, unless clear added value is demonstrated and no risks to their operations are involved. In contrast, the commercial fishing sector is proactive towards multi-use projects and acts as a driving force for MU developments. We provide a range of management recommendations, based on stakeholder input, to support progress towards robust decision making in relation to multi-use solutions, including required policy and regulatory framework improvements, good practice guidance, empirical studies, capacity building of stakeholders and improvements of the consultation process. Our findings represent a comprehensive depiction of the current state and key stakeholder aspirations for multi-use solutions combining fisheries and OWFs. We believe that the pathways towards robust decision making in relation to multi-use solutions suggested here are transferable to other international locations.

Description: Multi-use (MU) has been promoted as a viable approach to the effective planning and mitigation of user-conflicts in the marine realm. Despite several research and pilot projects demonstrating the approach’s feasibility and benefits, commercially viable MU applications remain patchy and few. Further, MU is neither systematically applied nor purposively planned for even in the imminent event of incompatible and conflicting use of marine space. This paper seeks to identify barriers and opportunities for mainstreaming MU based on desktop study and iterative stakeholder consultation. The findings reveal that the MU concept was frequently framed as ‘co-location’ or ‘co-existence’ and aimed toward mitigating conflict among users. Practice was ahead of theory with little attention to synergistic and efficiency aspects. Barriers for MU application include shortcomings in legislation, sectoral thinking, and burdensome administrative procedures. The main opportunity lies in creating a conducive policy environment where MU risks and transaction costs become low and competitive, respectively. Solutions at the sea basin and national level, upon which further MU application can be anchored, are proposed.