Combining sea and coastal planning in Europe

The C-SCOPE partnership was created to achieve a seamless, integrated approach to land and sea planning and management. The purpose of the project is to provide the foundation for strong, vibrant and sustainable coastal economies, which are in harmony with the environment. Involving all maritime sectors in their endeavours, both partners are concerned with encouraging and promoting sustainable and integrated management of the coast and ensuring that its inherent natural and cultural qualities are maintained and enhanced for the benefit of future generations. The project will achieve its objectives by developing a framework for integrating terrestrial and marine planning, tools for achieving sustainable coastal economies and environments – such as a planning tool for decision-making in the coastal zone, a coastal atlas and indicators – and engaging with stakeholders on their commitment to ICZM.

What were the key results of the project? Results for Activity 1 focused on Marine Plans and the evidence base to support them, also a combined lessons learned report on integrated marine/land planning focusinf on the Belgian and Dorset coast. The coastal and marine management plans and vision documents have been sent to the responsible authorities for further consideration. C-SCOPE has raised the awareness about the importance of cross-sectoral working and the importance of the land-sea interface. The combined report on integrated marine/land planning has also incorporated methods and key messages on stakeholder engagement. It focuses on governance, purpose and scale of the two partners’ marine plans, stakeholder engagement and key messages from the project. The key results of Activity 2 are the partners’ versions of Coastal Explorer Planning. Sustanability indicators, were included in the Coastal atlas and linked to the Dorset Marine Plan. Dorset Coastal Planning contains 203 terrestrial and marine data-sets, including the Marine Plan, which successfully integrates land and sea planning policies. A database on the tool provides a full inventory of all European, national, regional and local plan policies that are relevant to the Dorset Coast, providing summaries and links to the original documents. The existing Belgian Coastal Atlas was updated, expanded and upgraded to a Coastal Explorer, an interactive and dynamic tool with over 200 layers. Activity 3 results included a Communication Strategy which identified key target audiences, the messages we should be targeting them with and the types of media we could use to get these messages across. iCoast, an innovative educational web based information source for public use was also produced. The website acts as a ‘soft-management’ tool to ensure people carry out coastal activities in a sustainable way. In Belgium, a Coastal Forum was established with participants increasing each year. Did all partners and territories benefit from the results? The marine management plans are considered very valuable by the responsible authorities, who will now take the work forward. Although the work within C-SCOPE was done on a non-statutory basis, all stakeholders were highly prepared to cooperate and support the end results. These can now serve the statutory procedures on Marine Spatial Planning. The Dorset Coastal Planning tool is one of the first of its kind in the UK. It will leave planners, developers, consultees and other decision makers with an ability to make better and faster planning decisions, based on recently collated, quality-assessed data. Also the Belgian Coastal Atlas and iCoast will lead to an increased and shared knowledge amongst local stakeholders about the coastal and marine environment. Other benefits include better communication between stakeholders and increased knowledge and capacity to work with national marine planners, in the future, as well as responsible authorities (eg Marine Management Organisation in UK), marine planning practitioners and academics all drawning on the experiences of the project to help inform their future activities. Other European-funded projects have benefited from shared best-practise. Local stakeholders have benefited from increased knowledge, and have had a direct say in how they would like their coastline to be managed. In general, the final beneficiaries are the coastal communities, local businesses and other stakeholders who draw on the ecosystem goods and services that the marine and coastal environment provides them with. What were the effects / outcomes for the territories involved? Immediate effects of the C-SCOPE project are focused around the capacity to better manage the coastal and marine environment. The developed planning tools enable better decision making and more sustainable use of the MMA. Although it is too early to measure the outcomes of the Marine Plans, its sustainable development policies should help to ensure the coast and marine environment are protected and enhanced for current and future generations. It will ensure that the communities living there are healthy and resilient and that the coastal economy will thrive.