Addressing Sustainability Transition Pathways in the Blue Economy

Blue-Paths aims to foster sustainable use of the marine socio-ecological systems (SES) through the development of an innovative Sustainable Transition Framework (STF), that will investigate the pathways of pervasive ocean technologies (OTs) transformations in the most important sectors of the Blue Economy: namely Ocean Renewable Energy (ORE) Systems, shipping, fishery & aquaculture, nature protection, ocean clean-up systems, AI, digitalization, etc…

Blue-Paths implements the project aim by

1. Addressing spatial penetration of different OT (e.g. digital hubs, floating offshore wind energy, ocean clean-up systems,…; Figure A)
2. Review Sustainability Transition theory and frameworks and their potential positive impact towards transition-aware and anticipatory MSP.
3. Inform decision-makers and planners on more robust techniques for Ocean Technology allocation based on a case study of floating offshore wind energy development of the Spanish Maritime Spatial Plan. The case study applies an ensembling multi-criteria technique coupled with trade-off based cost-benefit analysis. Trade-offs for each planning subdivision are based on a 39 indicator database categorized into co-existence, socio-ecological, energy equity, technical/technological and spatial efficiency indicators (Figure B).