Marine spatial planning to achieve Integrated Coastal Zone Management: the Belgian case

Maes, F (2005) Marine spatial planning to achieve Integrated Coastal Zone Management: the Belgian case. In: "Adaptive Management and Local Specificity in ICZM" - CoastNet conference, 22 Sep 2005, Edinburgh, Scotland.

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Summary

There is a longstanding experience with spatial planning on land, but once reaching the waterline this planning stops in many countries. For too long people have considered the sea as an endless space in which there is plenty of room for sea bound activities and activities banned on land. In the past industrial waste and all other kinds of waste have been dumped into the sea. Today there is a rush to build offshore windmill farms and to increase offshore sand and gravel exploitation. Tomorrow it will be something else. Past activities were mainly planned on an ad hoc basis, looking for spots that did not interfere with already existing activities at sea and without taking into account the ecological important land-sea interactions, the ecosystems and habitats and the needs of the coastal population. This was particularly the case in Belgium, with its small coastline of 65 km and a total sea area of 3,600 km2 under its jurisdiction. Lots of activities are taking place in this sea area, called “the Belgian part of the North Sea (BPNS)‿. Most of those activities were not well planned. It is clear that while the principles of spatial structure planning on land are useful as guidelines, they will need to be adapted to the specifics of the marine environment, both in terms of the legislative framework and environmental constraints.

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