Blue-Paths · Addressing Sustainability Transition Pathways in the Blue Economy

Addressing Sustainability Transition Pathways in the Blue Economy

The project Blue-Paths (Addressing Sustainability Transition Pathways) had the aim to analyze the sustainable use of marine socio-ecological systems (SES) through the development of a sustainability transition framework that will investigate the pathways of pervasive ocean technologies (OTs) in the most important sectors of the ocean economy (e.g. offshore, wind energy, ocean-energy, coastal tourism, shipping, deep sea mining and marine biotech) and their effects on SES usage and distribution. The scale of analysis was the Spanish exclusive economic zone. Blue-Paths tested a novel modelling framework for ocean-based decision making by developing a pool of 39 indicators of socio-ecological-technical/technological-spatial efficiency and energy equity to support ocean-based decision-making exemplified for the allocation of offshore wind energy sites. For Blue-Paths it was particularly relevant that in February 2023, Spain adopted its first maritime spatial plan with 19 high potential areas for offshore wind energy development. To boost the impact of the project, Blue-Paths developed and applied on the indicator pool a multi-criteria ensembling technique (EnseMCDA; based on three different multi-criteria algorithms) to inform decision-making on the costs and benefits of the allocation of a certain sea area for offshore wind energy. Results were developed for four MSP subdivisions identified in the Spanish MSP (LEBA-Levatine-Balearic; NOR-North Atlantic, ESAL-Estrecho-Alboran and CAN-Canary Islands). The developed technique is highly flexible, because it enabled to analyze what cost and benefits indicators are most relevant in each of MSP subdivisions through the application of a Machine Learning Techniques. This enables users and decision-making to identify what planning measure are required to ensure optimal allocation of offshore wind energy infrastructure that minimizes socio-ecological impacts, is spatially efficient, technically/technologically feasible and equitable. The method is extendable to any other blue economy sector, it can be used for the identification of new and prioritization of marine protected areas, and any other emerging new ocean technology. In parallel, Blue-Paths reviewed the application of the concept of “Sustainability Transition” as defined for instance by Geels et al. (2010) “Sustainability transitions are long-term, multi-dimensional, and fundamental transformation processes through which established socio-technical systems shift to more sustainable modes of production and consumption”. In snapshot, the analysis showed that the term is applied in only a few Blue Economy sectors, such as shipping, aquaculture and offshore wind energy. This opened up the opportunity for the development of a novel framework, based on a petal diagram to address the methodologies available for sustainability transition characterization that could be relevant for different sectors of Blue Economy and at different planning stages of MSP. A cartographic research and literature review enabled the identification of other spatially pervasive/penetrating ocean technologies or spatial planning measures (e.g. new protected areas for climate change mitigation, marine R+D testing sites) emerging in the Spanish sea space. This included cases of ocean clean-up devices, testing of (3-D printed) artificial reefs, cabling for data flows, emerging electrified ferry routes, application of ROVs, potential extension of marine protected for climate change mitigation, research centres performing research in Artificial Intelligence for Blue Economy sectors, wave energy converters and sea space allocation for R+D. Relevance of social and ecological indicators for decision-making. Integration of the socio-ecological dimension was developed through a multitude of indicator. Data resources included stable European (e.g. EMODNet, CORINE) and national statistic data providers (national statistic institute). Socio-ecological data included information on coastal tourism, population density, potential ecological risks from offshore wind energy (birds, fish and habitats and mammals), employment in the tourism sector, tourism pressure and urbanization. Blue-Paths extended the datasets with a novel Energy-Equity indicator category that reflects the energetic and economic conditions of coastal provinces that are candidate for offshore wind energy development in Spain. The indicators included were this GDP per capita, installation capacity, contribution of the province to renewable energy production, contribution of the province to energy production on regional level and unemployment. The indicators resulted to be important, because they provide insights on the distributional equity of the allocation of offshore wind energy infrastructure and provide understanding which coastal regions have socio-economically privileged conditions and which coastal areas already take the burden of a transition to clean energy. Also, the datasets were applied at provincial scale, which appeared to be suitable geospatial scale for better decision-making in the allocation of offshore wind energy infrastructure.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз