EconPapers - Sustainability - Volume 14.
Spatial planning faces challenges in addressing interactions between land and sea. This paper elaborates on land–sea interfaces, which can integrate certain socio-cultural values and related tensions into maritime spatial planning (MSP). In this article, three regional case studies from Estonia, Latvia, and Poland analysed important intersections between the formations of cultural values and spatial dynamics within MSP processes. These cases make it possible to address current challenges, contested boundaries, and spatial planning possibilities to embrace the vibrant and complex ways the sea becomes connected to societal change. The study indicates the multiplicity of land–sea interfaces, which should be involved in MSP through situated places of terraqueous interactions, means of public participation, and meaningful boundaries within mobilised co-existence. The actual and possible tensions in allocating new functions of maritime spaces indicate the importance of coastal landscapes and communities. Thus, MSP practice can employ the land–sea interfaces to advance regional planning through participatory engagements, which reveal sociocultural linkages between society and environment on coastal areas.
Questions this practice may help answer:
- How to integrate socio-cultural values and related tensions into MSP?
- How to address Land-Sea Interaction (LSIs) within MSP processes?
- How can participatory engagement strengthen the implementation potential of MSP?
Implementation Context:
This research is conducted within the framework of the Interreg Land–Sea-Act project.
Aspects / Objectives:
This paper elaborates on land–sea interfaces, which can integrate certain socio-cultural values and related tensions into maritime spatial planning (MSP). Three regional case studies from Estonia, Latvia, and Poland are analysed to describe the significant intersections between the formation of cultural values and spatial dynamics within MSP processes. These cases aim to address current challenges, contested boundaries, and spatial planning possibilities to embrace the vibrant and complex ways in which the sea becomes connected to societal change.
Method:
These cases analysed the sociocultural dimension of land–sea interactions in MSP by specifically focusing on certain interfaces, thereby highlighting and framing co-existences between land and sea. These three case studies build on materials from the Interreg project Land–Sea-Act, as well as participatory processes (focus group, interviews, workshops, participatory GIS, scenarios) and desktop studies (statistical information, spatial data, policy, and planning documents).
Main Outputs / Results:
The paper contributes to understanding the sociocultural dimensions of maritime space by focusing on the multiplicity of land–sea interfaces in MSP. The three case studies in the Baltic Sea region indicate that land–sea interfaces in MSP are related to situated places of terraqueous interactions, means of public participation, and meaningful boundaries within mobilised co-existence with the sea. This perspective provides some tools for further elaborating the urgent need to address land–sea interactions in long-term MSP.
Transferability:
The cases reveal the importance of carefully addressing the sociocultural aspects of land–sea interfaces in MSP and call for identifying ways to bridge how diverse stakeholders form meanings and planners rationalise ideas of culture and of place across marine and terrestrial boundaries. In this sense, the elements explored in this article can feed into MSP processes across Europe.
Responsible Entity:
Centre for Landscape and Culture, School of Humanities, Tallinn University, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia
Costs / Funding Source:
INTERREG BSR: #R098 Land–Sea-Act; Polish Minister of Science and Higher Education:
5063/INTERREG BSR/19/2020/2; Estonian Research Council: PRG398.
Contact person:
Tarmo Pikner - Tallinn University - tarmo.pikner
tlu.ee (tarmo[dot]pikner[at]tlu[dot]ee)