Coastal Sustainable Development Studies in Latvia: Integrated Local Social-Ecological Systems Governance

Abstract

Importance of sustainable coastal governance also in the baltic sea region has been widely recognised and since such governance has to have integrative nature that requires horizontal cross-sectorial integration as well as involvement of all governance levels and subsequently organisation of vertical integration among the levels. besides some succesfull local cases around Europe, mainly special outside projects based, there is to be recognized that the municipal integrated sustainable coastal governance has not been yet neither well and widely locally developed in practice nor sufficiently researched field in order to permit necessary design of adequate policy innovations. Practical development and local realisation of the municipal integrated coastal governance often encounters obstacles of the basic nature, e.g. because there are not sufficiently understood and applied cross-and trans-disciplinary approaches -studies and governance of the coastal territories as the complex social-ecological systems (sEs). For understanding the process and structure of coastal governance, application of system thinking and system dynamics methods are to be emphasized as well. the paper demonstrates adaptation of coastal nature studies based system Analysis Framework (sAF) methodology for its application to coastal governance studies and general municipal governance system adjusting and upgrading towards coastal issues, what could be seen as the new step for sAF further planned developments. As the part of the EU bONUs programme baltcoast project, the authors performed, including main stakeholders participation elements, the issue identification step, system definition and also a conceptual model building steps of the sAF methodology application in the particular, local governance innovations rich, case study territory -salacgriva municipality in Latvia. coastal governance problems in Latvia are especially relevant for rural coastal municipalities with limited administrative capacities and long and low populated coastline territories. the next sAF application steps will include development of coastal governance system scenarios using a systems modelling tool and the design and testing of complementary set of governance instruments as science-policy interface, that shall support sustainable use of coastal resources in the interests of coastal nature and culture protection, and local socio-economic development.

Municipal coastal governance process research and development: coastal socio-ecological system and its governance understanding

“…Findings supplemented or even modified earlier results/conclusions leading to thought through g higher level generalizations for next SAF steps (coastal system formulation and analysis, etc.) (Lagzdina et al, 2017).…”

“…System analysis of material from all the mentioned studies (except interviews) there was the long list of coastal issues in rural territories established: 19 specific problem areas were withdrawn as the most typical for the particular coastal territory (Lagzdina et al, 2017 requirements set in the national legislation and, what is even more essential concern, they pointed to the lack of flexibility in attitude of the State Environmental Service (Inspectorate). addressing acute coastal problems or situations of basic development needs.…”

Systems Approach to Eastern Baltic Coastal Zone Management

“…Latvia has 497 km of the Baltic Sea coastline, of which 253 km is the coast of the Gulf of Riga, and 244 km is the coast of the Baltic Sea [20]. It provides living space for about 0.9 million people, which is 45% of the country's population [21,22] In 2016, the Long-Term Thematic Plan for the Development of Baltic Sea Coastal Public Infrastructure was elaborated. With the adoption of the EU MSP Directive in 2014, the ICM planning process was integrated into the development of the national MSP plan, being under approval now.…”

 Municipal coastal governance system developments in Latvia: governance segments, sectors and instruments

“…Stakeholder involvement is considered beneficial for gaining trust, knowledge, reducing conflicts, though there is present concern that the public may not be sufficiently well-motivated to participate (Evans et al, 2018;Schumacher et al, 2018;). There is still a growing number of literature sources on how participatory processes can help adaptive management of socio-ecological systems (SES) such as coastal areas (Quesada et al, 2018;Schumacher et al, 2018;Wamsler, 2017); even coastal communities are not sufficiently informed and face difficulties in accessing-applying information (Stojanovic, 2007;Ballinger, 2008;Kalpakis et.al., 2019;Ernsteins, 2011;Lagzdina et al, 2017). System Analysis Framework (SAF) now is internationally recognized method for better ICM particularly building on social-ecological systems and public involvement for the whole project cycle (Ostrom, 2009;Hopkins, 2012).…”

“…inhabitants. SAF was methodologically adapted for the need of the local level municipal coastal governance (MCG) process (Kudrenickis, 2016, Ernsteins, et al, 2017 First stage of BaltCoast R&D project studies done in rural coastal municipalities of Latvia (Lagzdina, 2017;Ernsteins, 2019; etc.) brought us again to the general conclusions (Ernsteins, 2010; etc.)…”