Suchergebnisse

Coastal and marine areas represent an increasingly important and relevant action space for spatial planning. However, to a large extent marine (or maritime) spatial planning has emerged separately from terrestrial spatial planning, constituting its own epistemic community. In particular, previous studies indicate that Marine Spatial Planning often follows an expert-driven resource management rationale focused on sea-use regulation. This paper examines practices of Marine Spatial Planning and Integrated Coastal Zone Management at the German North Sea coast. The paper focuses in particular on the engagement of spatial planners with these practices and their perception of their role therein. We seek to understand what form spatial planning at the coast and at sea currently takes and how this might develop in the future in response to current and anticipated policy developments. We argue for the necessity of a communicative, cross-sectoral approach to spatial planning at sea, providing a spatial vision for the future that extends from the Exclusive Economic Zone to encompass both the coastal waters of the federal states and the land-sea interface in a substantive manner. ; Küsten und Meere stellen ein zunehmend wichtigeres und bedeutenderes Aktionsfeld für räumliche Planung dar. In der marinen oder maritimen Raumordnung hat sich ein weitgehend eigenständiger Kreis an Experten in Verwaltung und Wissenschaft herausgebildet, nicht zuletzt, weil sich die maritime Raumordnung in den letzten Jahren in weiten Teilen unabhängig von der terrestrischen Raumordnung entwickelt hat. So zeigen verschiedene Publikationen auf, dass maritime Raumordnung dazu tendiert, einem expertenorientierten, rationalen Planungsansatz zu folgen mit dem Schwerpunkt auf Meeresnutzungsregulierung. In dieser Studie untersuchen wir, wie Planungspraktiken in der maritimen Raumordnung und im Integrierten Küstenzonenmanagement an der deutschen Nordseeküste angewendet werden und wie Planer ihre Rolle in diesen Praktiken wahrnehmen. Welche Formen nimmt räumliche Planung an der Küste und im Meer gegenwärtig an und wie könnten sich diese als Reaktion auf gegenwärtige und zukünftige Veränderungen in der Planungspolitik weiterentwickeln? Wir plädieren für die Notwendigkeit, auf der Basis einer übergreifenden Vision von der Ausschließlichen Wirtschaftszone über die Küstengewässer bis einschließlich der Schnittstellen zwischen Land und Meer verstärkt kommunikative, raum- und sektorübergreifende Ansätze zu nutzen.

Coastal and marine areas represent an increasingly important and relevant action space for spatial planning. However, to a large extent marine (or maritime) spatial planning has emerged separately from terrestrial spatial planning, constituting its own epistemic community. In particular, previous studies indicate that Marine Spatial Planning often follows an expert-driven resource management rationale focused on sea-use regulation. This paper examines practices of Marine Spatial Planning and Integrated Coastal Zone Management at the German North Sea coast. The paper focuses in particular on the engagement of spatial planners with these practices and their perception of their role therein. We seek to understand what form spatial planning at the coast and at sea currently takes and how this might develop in the future in response to current and anticipated policy developments. We argue for the necessity of a communicative, cross-sectoral approach to spatial planning at sea, providing a spatial vision for the future that extends from the Exclusive Economic Zone to encompass both the coastal waters of the federal states and the land-sea interface in a substantive manner.

The sustainable exploitation of marine ecosystem services is dependent on achieving and maintaining an adequate ecosystem state to prevent undue deterioration. Within the European Union, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) requires member states to achieve Good Environmental Status (GEnS), specified in terms of 11 descriptors. We analyzed the complexity of social-ecological factors to identify common critical issues that are likely to influence the achievement of GEnS in the Northeast Atlantic (NEA) more broadly, using three case studies. A conceptual model developed using a soft systems approach highlights the complexity of social and ecological phenomena that influence, and are likely to continue to influence, the state of ecosystems in the NEA. The development of the conceptual model raised four issues that complicate the implementation of the MSFD, the majority of which arose in the Pressures and State sections of the model: variability in the system, cumulative effects, ecosystem resilience, and conflicting policy targets. The achievement of GEnS targets for the marine environment requires the recognition and negotiation of trade-offs across a broad policy landscape involving a wide variety of stakeholders in the public and private sectors. Furthermore, potential cumulative effects may introduce uncertainty, particularly in selecting appropriate management measures. There also are endogenous pressures that society cannot control. This uncertainty is even more obvious when variability within the system, e.g., climate change, is accounted for. Also, questions related to the resilience of the affected ecosystem to specific pressures must be raised, despite a lack of current knowledge. Achieving good management and reaching GEnS require multidisciplinary assessments. The soft systems approach provides one mechanism for bringing multidisciplinary information together to look at the problems in a different light.

The sustainable exploitation of marine ecosystem services is dependent on achieving and maintaining an adequate ecosystem state to prevent undue deterioration. Within the European Union, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) requires member states to achieve Good Environmental Status (GEnS), specified in terms of 11 descriptors. We analyzed the complexity of social-ecological factors to identify common critical issues that are likely to influence the achievement of GEnS in the Northeast Atlantic (NEA) more broadly, using three case studies. A conceptual model developed using a soft systems approach highlights the complexity of social and ecological phenomena that influence, and are likely to continue to influence, the state of ecosystems in the NEA. The development of the conceptual model raised four issues that complicate the implementation of the MSFD, the majority of which arose in the Pressures and State sections of the model: variability in the system, cumulative effects, ecosystem resilience, and conflicting policy targets. The achievement of GEnS targets for the marine environment requires the recognition and negotiation of trade-offs across a broad policy landscape involving a wide variety of stakeholders in the public and private sectors. Furthermore, potential cumulative effects may introduce uncertainty, particularly in selecting appropriate management measures. There also are endogenous pressures that society cannot control. This uncertainty is even more obvious when variability within the system, e.g., climate change, is accounted for. Also, questions related to the resilience of the affected ecosystem to specific pressures must be raised, despite a lack of current knowledge. Achieving good management and reaching GEnS require multidisciplinary assessments. The soft systems approach provides one mechanism for bringing multidisciplinary information together to look at the problems in a different light.

Global and regional change clearly affects the structure and functioning of ecosystems in shelf seas. However, complex interactions within the shelf seas hinder the identification and unambiguous attribution of observed changes to drivers. These include variability in the climate system, in ocean dynamics, in biogeochemistry, and in shelf sea resource exploitation in the widest sense by societies. Observational time series are commonly too short, and resolution, integration time, and complexity of models are often insufficient to unravel natural variability from anthropogenic perturbation. The North Sea is a shelf sea of the North Atlantic and is impacted by virtually all global and regional developments. Natural variability (from interannual to multidecadal time scales) as response to forcing in the North Atlantic is overlain by global trends (sea level, temperature, acidification) and alternating phases of direct human impacts and attempts to remedy those. Human intervention started some 1000 years ago (diking and associated loss of wetlands), expanded to near-coastal parts in the industrial revolution of the mid-19th century (river management, waste disposal in rivers), and greatly accelerated in the mid-1950s (eutrophication, pollution, fisheries). The North Sea is now a heavily regulated shelf sea, yet societal goals (good environmental status versus increased uses), demands for benefits and policies diverge increasingly. Likely, the southern North Sea will be re-zoned as riparian countries dedicate increasing sea space for offshore wind energy generation - with uncertain consequences for the system's environmental status. We review available observational and model data (predominantly from the southeastern North Sea region) to identify and describe effects of natural variability, of secular changes, and of human impacts on the North Sea ecosystem, and outline developments in the next decades in response to environmental legislation, and in response to increased use of shelf sea space