The Plan4Blue project worked with Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP), under which it produced four future scenarios to support planning and management activities.

These scenarios discuss:

1. Marine energy
2. The maritime cluster
3. Blue bioeconomy & subsea resources and
4. Maritime tourism.

Planning was improved in the Finnish Gulf area between Finland and Estonia. Also, Russia and Åland islands were included on an information exchange level.

The project also created a guidance document to manage environmental risks related to human activities. For the guidance document, three case studies on the topics of shipping, pelagic fishing and nature conservation were conducted. Based on this, recommendations were given on how each of these topics should be addressed in MSP and what are important cross-border considerations. In addition, the project developed recommendations for cross-border collaboration in the frame of MSP.

Concrete improvements by the project include:

• Increased cross-border coherence of MSP through joint planning and management activities
• Increased awareness of the sustainable use of resources
• Improved capacity of planners, managers and stakeholders to assess what impact the project cross-border marine activities have had on environmental and socio-economic topics.

During implementation, the project published several documents as tangible proof for the improved MSP:

• The main results are the scenarios, for which also animations and infographics have been published.
• There are publications and reports published on each of the project topics; sustainable blue economies, environmental management of Maritime Spatial Planning, cross-border spatial data analysis and map visualisations and cross-border collaboration in MSP.
• Recommendations for maritime spatial planning for sustainable blue economies (pdf)

Publications related to the above topics are listed below

Sustainable Blue Economies:

• Blue Growth ─ Drivers and alternative scenarios for the Gulf of Finland and the Archipelago Seacenario (pdf, 2 MB). 2018. Publications of the Centre for Maritime Studies, Brahea Centre at the University of Turku. A 75.
• Assessment of the role of marine industries in the region (pdf, 2 MB). 2018

Environmental Management:

• Marine environmental vulnerability and cumulative risk profiles to support ecosystem-based adaptive maritime spatial planning. 2018. Aps, R., Herkül, K. et.al. ICES Journal of Marine Science
• Environmental management strategy for maritime spatial planning (pdf, 1 MB, June 2019)
• Guidelines on environmental management for sustainable MSP (pdf, 1 MB, August 2019)

Spatial Analysis:

• Guide for cross-border spatial data analysis in Maritime Spatial Planning (pdf, 2 MB). Practical handbook. 2019. Nylén T, Tolvanen H, Erkkilä-Välimäki A & Roose M. Publications of the Department of Geography and Geology of University of Turku 12. University of Turku, Turku.
• Map visualisations of Plan4Blue MSP case studies (pdf, 5 MB). Map deliverable. 2019. Roose, M., Nylén, T., Tolvanen, H., Erkkilä-Välimäki, A. Plan4Blue report.
• From silent knowledge to spatial information – Mapping blue growth scenarios for maritime spatial planning. Scientific article. 2019. Tolvanen, H, Erkkilä-Välimäki, A, Nylén, T (2019). Marine Policy 107, 103598.

Cross-border collaboration in MSP:

• Recommendations for cross-border collaboration (pdf, 1 MB, 2019)

More available on the project website.