A North Sea Perspective on Shipping, Energy and Environment Aspects in MSP

The North Sea is vital for marine wildlife and for several maritime industries. Due to its vast wind, wave and tidal energy resources, it is envisaged to become Europe's green powerhouse. For this to happen, offshore green energy production must expand enormously.

In the North Sea, Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) is a national responsibility. However, there is a need to coordinate the national MSPs to tap into synergies and reconcile conflicting interests.

For the first time, NorthSEE brought together national MSP authorities in the North Sea Region. They focused on creating coherence in MSP within three key topics: Shipping routes, Environment, and Energy infrastructure.

The project developed two tools to support the dialogue. Living Q is an interactive discussion tool. The MSP Challenge Simulation is a serious game enabling decision makers and stakeholders to collaborate on planning.  

Using these tools, planners compared national MSPs and developed future scenarios jointly with stakeholders. This allowed the planners to identify possible synergies as well as mismatches. They were also able to find solutions for sites with incompatibilities. 
 
The project's findings are found in 20 reports. Topics include shipping trends and routes, energy policy trends and infrastructure, connectivity of marine protected areas, the intersection of policy and science, and road maps to a stronger MSP coordination.

Thanks to NorthSEE, MSP authorities and researchers now work more closely together in the North Sea Basin. Several transnational working groups continue their work after project end.

Project partners :

1)    Oldenburg University, Germany (lead partner)
2)    Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency, Germany
3)    Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment, the Netherlands
4)    Ministry of Transport, Belgium
5)    Scottish Government, United Kingdom
6)    Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management, Sweden
7)    Aalborg University, Denmark
8)    World Maritime University, Sweden
9)    Breda University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands
10)    Province of North-Holland, the Netherlands
11)    Norwegian Environment Agency, Norway
12)    Institute of Marine Research, Norway