The Ecosystem Approach to Marine Planning and Management

The marine environment is one of our most precious yet fragile natural resources. It provides a wide range of essential goods and services, including food, regulation of climate and nutrient cycling, as well as a setting for transport, recreation and tourism. This environment is however extremely complex and very sensitive to development pressures and other forms of human influence. Planning and management of the sea are similarly complicated, reflecting intricate legal, institutional and ownerships patterns. This creates a situation where marine ecosystems are vulnerable to over-exploitation or neglect.

The Ecosystem Approach to Marine Planning and Management describes how growing concern about the state of our seas is resulting in the development of new approaches to marine planning and management. For example, the United Nations Environment Programme has called for the widespread introduction of Marine Spatial Planning (MSP), and the European Union has recently been consulting on a new European Maritime Policy designed to stimulate economic growth but at the same time protect the resource base. Within the United Kingdom, the 2010 Marine Act draws upon the experience of town and country planning and brings into being a new system of Marine Spatial Planning. The authors show that a common feature of all these developments is an appreciation that more integrated forms of planning and management are required for our seas and that new arrangements must draw together understanding from natural science, social science and many other perspectives. Adopting such a trans-disciplinary and holistic (or 'ecosystems') approach, the book distils the expertise of these different disciplines and seeks to promote a broader understanding of the origins and practicalities of new approaches to marine planning and management.

Sue Kidd is a senior lecturer in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Liverpool, UK. She is a chartered town planner with research interests in integrated spatial planning with particular reference to coastal and marine areas. She has led the development of the University's new MSc in Marine Planning and Management and is currently chair of the Irish Sea Marine Conservation Zones Project which is establishing a new network of marine nature conservation designations.

Andy Plater is a Professor of Physical Geography in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Liverpool. His research interests include coastal geomorphology, climate change impacts and management of ecosystem services. He is acting director of SWIMMER - The Institute for Sustainable Water, Integrated Management & Ecosystem Research which undertakes interdisciplinary research in collaboration with the end user community.

Chris Frid is a Professor of Marine Biology and head of the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Liverpool. His research focuses on the factors influencing marine ecosystem dynamics including human impacts. He has led several projects which have developed an ecosystem approach to the management of the marine environment including the European Fisheries Ecosystem Plan (EFEP) for the North Sea.