What are the challenges the Plan4Blue cumulative impact and ...

Plan4Blue project work on cumulative impacts Robert Aps (University of Tartu, Estonia), Leena Laamanen (SYKE, Finland) Venice, Italy,18 January 2018 HELCOM 2nd holistic assessment BSPI and BSII

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5 6 7 Plan4Blue cumulative impact and risk

tool 8 What are the challenges the Plan4Blue cumulative impact and risk tool seeks to address?

The Plan4Blue environmental cumulative impact and risk tool is enabling the maritime spatial planners to assess and evaluate the sea areas where planned economic activities may potentially be in conflict with

ecological sustainability 9 Terminology Environmental impact - the effect that the human activities have on the

environment Effect - a change which is a result or consequence of an event or other cause Cumulative risk - a measure of the total risk that a certain event will happen during a given period of time

10 What can the Plan4Blue cumulative impact and risk tool do ? 11

Environmental vulnerability profile 12 Environmental impact index / risk profile 13

Environmental cumulative risk analysis Environmental cumulative risk analysis is based on the following assumptions: 1) the level of cumulative human pressure (BSPI) is proportional to the likelihood of potential cumulative spatial impacts/effects

on marine ecosystem, and 2) the level of environmental vulnerability is proportional to the potential consequences of cumulative environmental pressures on marine ecosystem 14

Example 15 Example environmental cumulative impact index

16 Example environmental cumulative risk analysis matrix 17

The value neutral scientific consequences (C) are technically converted into an impact statement (I) within the policy context. A likelihood and consequence in the pink area becomes an intolerable situation from a policy perspective 18

What could the Plan4Blue cumulative impact and risk tool do in the future? As a next step the Plan4Blue cumulative impact and risk tool will be further developed to calculate the environmental cumulative impact and cumulative risk of

the future oriented spatial scenario options of human activities aimed at achieving the MSP environmental objectives e.g. under climate change 19

What are the limitations for developing the tool? For example: Not clearly enough defined SMART environmental objectives and the cumulative impact / risk evaluation criteria of the actual MSP processes

20 Acknowledgements This study is supported by European Regional Development Fund, INTERREG Central Baltic project Plan4Blue Maritime Spatial Planning

for Sustainable Blue Economies and the Estonian Environmental Investment Centre 21 Partners

22 Thank you! MORE INFORMATION [email protected] SYKE.FI/PROJECTS/PLAN4BLUE #plan4blue