Current status, advancements and development needs of geospatial decision support tools for marine spatial planning in European seas

Assessing cumulative impacts of human-induced pressures on reef and sandbank habitats and associated biotopes in the northeastern Baltic Sea

“…Cumulative impact assessment is increasingly being used to evaluate the impact of multiple pressures on marine ecosystems in MSP (e.g. Gissi et al, 2017 ; Jones et al, 2018 ) and here DSTs are considered a valuable instrument to reduce the inherent complexities of ecosystem for environmental managers and conservation practitioners with the aim to decrease vulnerability and increase resilience in natural systems ( Depellegrin et al, 2021 ). Some of the existing DSTs include elements of cumulative impacts assessment to support ecosystem-based management from national to macro-regional scales and thereby effectively facilitating communication at the science-policy interface ( Depellegrin et al, 2021 ).…”

“… Gissi et al, 2017 ; Jones et al, 2018 ) and here DSTs are considered a valuable instrument to reduce the inherent complexities of ecosystem for environmental managers and conservation practitioners with the aim to decrease vulnerability and increase resilience in natural systems ( Depellegrin et al, 2021 ). Some of the existing DSTs include elements of cumulative impacts assessment to support ecosystem-based management from national to macro-regional scales and thereby effectively facilitating communication at the science-policy interface ( Depellegrin et al, 2021 ). These tools mostly apply a widely accepted approach of cumulative impact assessment ( Halpern et al, 2008 ) without fully explaining or exploring limitations of assumption behind the analysis.…”

“…This study uses the PlanWise4Blue (PW4B) tool ( Kotta et al, 2020 ) to predict the environmental consequences of feasible management scenarios on benthic habitats in Estonian waters. PW4B tool is the first data-driven DST on cumulative impact analysis that takes advantage of a plethora of scientific evidence to define the individual and/or combined impacts of human-induced pressures on ecosystems ( Depellegrin et al, 2021 ). Most of the other developed DSTs rely on expert judgement to define responses of ecosystems to pressures caused by different human activity ( Jones et al, 2018 ).…”

new strategic framework to structure Cumulative Impact Assessment (CIA)

“…Different management scenarios can also be incorporated into the HRA model (e.g. one stressor vs multiple stressors management) so as to explore their efficiency towards stressor mitigation as well as meeting the ecosystem-based marine spatial planning requirements [45], [47], [48].…”

“…Ultimately, the HRA-DBN will integrate physical/biological indicators associated with climate change and upper trophic levels affected by MRED in order to assess and predict ecosystem and population trade-offs and future distributions. This will help to identify potential mitigation and compensatory measures at correct spatio-temporal scales to maximise future ecosystem value and functioning in order to enhance marine spatial planning processes [17], [47], [48].…”