Intervention Area: Managing Sea-Uses

Background and rationale 

The boundaries and operational objectives for sustainable development and Good Environmental Status are defined under the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). Within this framework, an integrated and holistic approach to planning and management i.e. ecosystem-based management of human activities (EBM),  and Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) play an important role in achieving Europe’s objectives of decarbonisation and biodiversity protection by supporting more efficient use of marine space, while reducing conflicting uses and inefficiencies in transport and related facilities (EC COM/2021/240 final). MSP plays a crucial role in defining suitable space for Blue Economy sectors to operate, while assessing and mitigating their cumulative impacts and promoting coexistence with other sea uses. MSP also needs to ensure that these human activities are compatible with restoration goals, as defined in the Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR) and take into account existing and planned marine protected areas (MPAs). Furthermore, MSP should consider knowledge on climate change, be flexible to changing conditions and support climate mitigation and adaptation (Frazão Santos et al, 2024). This is particularly relevant in coastal areas, characterised by enhanced anthropogenic pressure from overlapping multiple uses and intensified land-ocean fluxes of matter and energy, which render ecosystem conservation and restoration goals, aiming at achieving a good environmental status, even more challenging.

The overarching goal of this Intervention Area is to support science-based decision making that takes stock of environmental status, the legacy of human impacts, climate change trends, and future scenarios, considering the multitude of pressures from uses of marine space and marine resources. The Intervention Area focuses on R&I needs related to ecosystem-based management and Maritime Spatial Planning, aiming to support cross-border cooperation and management of marine space and marine protected areas, innovative tools for decision making that combine data from various sectors (eg, decision support systems), as well as knowledge generation on areas such as Good Environmental Status (GES). Co-design, co-development, and co-use with MSP, MSFD and NRR competent authorities at the national and regional levels will be essential to ensure direct capitalisation of results and to widen the information basis available to relevant authorities, particularly by including socio-economic data sources. The implementation of ecosystem-based MSP is currently hindered by a lack of standardised procedures and indicators, fragmented governance with weak cross-border coordination, and significant data and knowledge gaps, particularly regarding ecosystem functioning, cumulative impacts, and socio-ecological linkages. Through targeted actions at a sufficient scale, this IA has the potential to contribute significantly to the implementation of the MSFD and the review of the MSP Directive, its relationship with nature restoration and to the EU Ocean Pact. 

Key thematic areas

1. Fostering the full use of scientific knowledge for effective management, conservation and restoration  

Assessment of ecosystem health is a prerequisite for effective environmental management, conservation and restoration. Innovative research on this topic will provide essential data for the identification of suitable areas for diverse uses and setting boundaries for these uses through licensing, thereby minimising conflicts and maximising sustainable development and protection of marine ecosystems. Ecosystem-based management, including MSP, requires high-resolution mapping of ecological features and human uses and quantification of indicators describing ecosystem status and (cumulative) pressures caused by human uses. The temporal evolution and spatial patterns of the monitored variables, either abiotic or biotic (community structure and function) are relevant for MSP and other marine policies, notably the MSFD and NRR. Scientific knowledge will provide essential tools for the evaluation of ecosystem services and for the maintenance or restoration of their supply. Effective management and conservation of the carbon capture capacity of coastal blue carbon ecosystems will help launching ecologically viable carbon sequestration management strategies within the EU Green Deal policy and provide the needed knowledge to implement the EU Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming (CRCF) regulation. This thematic area will provide innovative tools or strategies for the assessment and restoration of ecosystem health and for the implementation of Nature-based Solutions and management strategies in complex socioecological systems. At the land-ocean interface, where intense human pressures (nutrients, pollutants, sound, etc) derived from urbanisation, agriculture, or industrial activities occur, close interaction with the Water Framework Directive implementation is needed.

Activities should address the following aspects:

• Research focused on status and ecosystem service assessment, through development of monitoring programmes and methods to assess ecological status, including of MPAs, notably of protected species and habitats therein, and evaluate management effectiveness, both for individual MPAs and regional MPA networks. Digitalisation of monitoring processes enables more efficient and accurate data collection and analysis.
• Development of approaches, eg, using natural capital accounting or simulation tools, can help predict ecosystem responses and optimise management strategies, for the integrated assessment of ecosystem services to provide more information on the links between the ecosystem and the social-economic system to support the implementation of ecosystem-based management of human activities and marine policies.
• Research focused on pressures and their impact, through improve data coverage of physical and chemical human pressures affecting seafloor integrity, and of benthic habitats, eg. by performing intelligent seafloor sampling surveys, to assess the s3e3tatus of these habitats and evaluate the effectiveness of restoration measures. Artificial intelligence can be applied to analyse complex datasets and identify patterns in human pressures and ecosystem changes.
• Research focused on developing reduction targets for anthropogenic pressures, such as for pollution through quantification of nutrients, hazardous substances and litter sources that lead to inputs to the sea, especially in highly anthropised land-ocean interface ecosystems, and quantification of efficiency of measures that can curb these sources. Sources are both land-based (agriculture, urban and industrial wastewater, ports) and sea-based (shipping, offshore energy production, aquaculture). With regard to sea-based sources of pollution/introduction of energy, underwater noise and electromagnetic fields are also of concern. For underwater noise, the EU threshold values still need to be specified regarding the target species and relevant habitats to be considered.

• Research focused on the effectiveness of measures, including Nature-based Solutions, with the identification of areas, as well as development and improvement of methods, for the restoration of benthic habitats/biotopes, e.g. habitat-forming species such as seagrass beds, macrophyte stands and reefs, along with improving the understanding of the wider synergistic effects of habitat restoration efforts. This aims to support effective measures to improve biodiversity and nature-based solutions for tackling climate change and its impacts, using, for instance, the carbon sequestration capacity of coastal blue carbon ecosystems.

   

2. Development of innovative Decision Support Tools (DSTs) 

MSP is recognised today as an essential tool to prevent conflict between policy priorities and to reconcile nature conservation with economic development (EC COM/2021/240 final). However, the effective implementation of an Ecosystem-Based Maritime Spatial Planning (EB-MSP) framework is hindered by insufficient operational guidelines, poorly defined and time-bounded objectives, lack of standardised indicators and monitoring mechanisms, inadequate spatial and temporal boundaries for the assessments, and fragmented governance structures. Furthermore, data and knowledge gaps, such as limited information on ecosystem functioning, socio-ecological systems, and future spatial-use scenarios, combined with weak stakeholder engagement and a lack of adaptive management tools, collectively impede coherent, evidence-based, and cross-sectoral decision-making. The complexity of MSP and EB-MSP requires new digital tools to analyse large, heterogeneous datasets from various sources, as well as sophisticated tools to analyse and visualise data, assess potential conflicts, and identify optimal solutions that support predictive modelling. DSTs can significantly enhance the effectiveness and sustainability of MSP processes. By integrating multiple data sources and modelling techniques, DSTs will allow decision-makers to evaluate different scenarios and make better-informed decisions by considering the broader impacts and interdependencies among different sea uses. Following open science practices must ensure that research outputs of DST’s support policy-making, enhance public engagement, and remain widely accessible, fostering transparency, reproducibility, and innovation. The blue economy benefits from shared knowledge and resources.

Activities should address the following aspects:

• Development and improvement of digital tools (Artificial Intelligence based) Decision Support Tools that can perform qualitative and quantitative analyses to support implementation of the ecosystem-based management of human activities.
• Development of new digital and simulation-based methodologies to be included in DSTs to improve quantitative estimates of environmental, social, and economic benefits of MSP in present and future scenarios, taking into account climate change, at a transnational scale.
• Identifying environmental and socio-economic trends and drivers, including environmental disasters and preparedness to marine hazards, and building scenarios at sea-basin and sub-sea basin scale for informed adaptive planning and management, including deployment of nature-based solutions.
• Development of case studies and demonstrators of the concrete added value of the developed DSTs for specific sector planning demands, with a focus onthe  coastal areas and land-sea interactions (e.g., offshore renewable energies, aquaculture, fisheries, maritime transport, coastal and maritime tourism, commercial ports and multi-use of marine space). Case studies and demonstrators could identify and test for example:
  • solutions to improve the coexistence of maritime transport with other uses and reduce impacts on ecosystems within MSP processes at national and transboundary level.
  • embedding strictly protected areas, as well as dedicated fishing areas and maritime surveillance into MSP, through dedicated zoning and management measures.
  • using nature-based solutions or nature-inclusive design of coastal structures such as harbours, breakwaters, etc.
• Contributing to overcoming technical and non-technical barriers in co-using advanced DSTs in institutional MSP processes.
   

Implementation, enablers, and synergies 

R&I calls for proposals are important to address knowledge gaps, develop solutions, and build R&I capacity within the area. A significant leverage effect for creating sufficient scientific impact at the European level could be realised through transnationally synchronised pilot projects for large-scale knowledge and capacity exchange and intensified policy follow-up, resulting from joint programming of fieldwork, including needed experiments. This can apply to both thematic areas of this IA. There is good potential for engaging observing systems and RIs through additional activities (in-kind contributions), potentially synchronised with a transnational R&I call, e.g., in relation to seafloor sampling and observation, experimenting with an agreed range of tools and methodologies for specific targeted habitats and their communities (remote sensing, acoustics, eDNA, biologging, underwater camera’s, comparing no-take zones with others, etc.). The joint programming aspects can also take the form of a transnational task description and implementation for desk- or other research to fill urgent gaps in knowledge related to the assessment of environmental status efficiently, such as for underwater noise, hydrographical conditions, optimisation of eutrophication assessment, etc. R&I efforts are also needed to address the lack of data standards and the challenges of combining data from a variety of sources.

Development of blue economy sectors and the optimal use of resources are addressed in SBEP IA: "Transitioning Blue Economy Sectors" and are also part of other IAs. The present Intervention Area will build on input from relevant projects under HE (in particular, Cluster 6 Destination 1 topics). It will align with EU Missions ‘Restore our Ocean and Waters’ and 'Adaptation to Climate Change' and the DTO initiative. Among European Partnerships Biodiversa+; Artificial Intelligence (AI), data and robotics, Zero Emission Waterborne Transport, and FutureFoodS will be of relevance.

Many organizations and initiatives at global and sea-basin scale are involved in promoting and implementing MSP, MSFD and NRR, including from United Nations to the UNESCO/IOC to executing authorities of the Regional Sea Conventions to national governments implementing relevant European directives. These organisations have an interest in improving the scientific basis of their programmes and measures and are approachable for co-design of effective R&I projects. Accessible science agendas published by the Regional Sea Conventions OSPAR, HELCOM and the Black Sea Commission, and the Mediterranean Quality Status Reports provide background and concrete descriptions of the R&I needed for ecosystem-based management. It should be noted that each Region represents specific challenges regarding ecosystem status economic developments and the geopolitical situation. Governance and implementation systems depend on collaboration with non-EU countries and on available resources. This Intervention Area therefore requires basin-specific adaptation of research. 

Outcomes and Impacts

The R&I investments in this Intervention Area are expected to yield tangible outcomes and impacts across environmental, social, and economic dimensions. Expected impacts are enhanced capacity for R&I, including decision-support tools, to support the implementation of the MSP, MSFD, NRR, and CFP, and to contribute to the upcoming EU Ocean Pact and Water Resilience Strategy. This relates to the following impacts of R&I projects:

• Knowledge that contributes to management measures that effectively minimise current environmental impacts, prevent future harm through the early identification of potential impacts and facilitate evidence-based nature restoration. This includes contributions to the implementation of environmental policies and MSP.
• Knowledge that supports decision making with societal and environmental benefits, improves public trust in the research-innovation-management chain, improves public literacy regarding transformations of marine ecosystems caused by climate change and direct human impacts and enhances opportunities to engage in citizen science, including staff of blue economy sectors like fishermen and offshore energy maintenance staff.
• Knowledge that broadens and deepens the evidence base for decision making to create long-term perspectives for entrepreneurship in maritime sectors that should be green and not cause any significant harm to environmental objectives.