OREANDA-NEWS. Because human activities and their impacts do not stop at national sea borders, there is a need for coordination among national Maritime Spatial Plans and planning processes.

With this in mind relevant Maritime Spatial Planning authorities will cooperate over the coming three years within the two sister projects “NorthSEE” and “Baltic LINes”, funded through Interreg. University of Tartu Estonian Marine Institute is one of the partner of the projects.

Offshore windfarms, cables and pipelines, shipping routes connecting major harbours, fishery and fish, unique nature conservation areas: the North Sea and Baltic Sea have it all. All these human and natural activities require space in the sea. And with a growing amount of human activity, the demand for space will be growing too. Coordination among different sectors is important to prevent conflicts, foster co-use and synergies and thereby ensure sustainable development. To stimulate this process, the European Union has recently adopted legislation requiring all coastal EU countries to plan their maritime activities. These national Maritime Spatial Plans have to be coherent and coordinated within the sea basin, and finalized by 2021 (EU MSP Directive 2014).

Shipping routes, energy corridors and environmental protection are those issues which are of a highly transnational nature. Thus, the Baltic LINes project aims at developing pan-Baltic planning solutions for shipping routes and linear energy infrastructure and integration of these in national plans. This prevents cross-border mismatches and secures transnational connectivity as well as efficient use of sea space. NorthSEE also aims to improve cooperation between the MSP authorities in the North Sea Region and to achieve greater coherence between national plans and planning processes in the fields of shipping, energy and environmental protection.

Coordination is more successful when it is backed up with evidence, such as data and information on natural conditions, current and planned uses, future trends and resulting needs for shipping and energy as well as environmental concerns. The reduction of ice-covered areas due to climate change may for instance have dramatic consequences for shipping routes. To obtain information, the NorthSEE and Baltic LINes projects actively involve stakeholders to integrate their input in the process. This is partly done by using an innovative gaming tool, called MSP Challenge, which engages participants in scenario building and reflects upon questions of future challenges.

The NorthSEE and Baltic LINes projects are led by the German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency. The meeting in Copenhagen launched the first ever joint implementation of two Maritime Spatial Planning projects in the North and Baltic Sea, increasing synergy even across two sea-basins. Together with expert institutions as well as sector stakeholders, they will work on developing coherent transnational planning solutions on a large spatial scale.