Marine co-existence scenario building

The need for energy and food from the Ocean will lead to significant growth in the use of our nearby sea basins over the next 10-20 years. DNV's report "Ocean's Future to 2050" shows that the race for ocean space is intensifying, and that many of the world's coastal zones are under severe pressure. The development of offshore wind and aquaculture must take place in a responsible and sustainable manner as part of a holistic ocean management process, where qualitative criteria are also used in assessing the suitability of new projects. DNV will lead a 3-year innovation project in collaboration with Mainstream Renewable Power, the Norwegian Fishermen's Association, Salmar Aker Ocean and the Institute of Marine Research. The project is called MARCO (Marine Co-existence Scenario Building) and will build a toolbox to assess scenarios for coexistence and nature-based solutions. Co-existence not only between industries, e.g. fisheries and offshore wind, but also with nature. The aim of the project is to build a common knowledge base among ocean stakeholders with the development of scenarios to resolve goal conflicts, identify synergies, and negotiate win-win solutions while safeguarding ocean health. The knowledge base will combine spatial and temporal data and analysis to provide increased insight into long-term effects, such as climate change and corresponding changes in ecosystem composition and services, which also entails uncertainty. An aspect of this is to try to assess the cumulative impact on nature from the activities in question. MARCO will contribute towards trust and transparency in decision-making processes and the scenarios will facilitate dialogue and interaction between stakeholders. This will give investors, developers and planners the confidence that investments and the use of marine areas are based on a holistic, inclusive and knowledge-based assessment.

The proposed innovation concept, MARine CO-existence scenario building (MARCO), is a toolbox to be used in connection with strategic planning and stakeholder dialogues for offshore field developments and marine spatial planning. It aims to provide transparency and trust in consenting processes and stakeholder dialogues through establishing a common knowledge base among ocean stakeholders, enabling them to resolve goal conflicts, identify synergies, and negotiate win-win solutions. MARCO is unique in the way it will combine both spatial and temporal analysis and how it will allow project partners and other ocean stakeholders to interactively explore different scenarios for co-existence that they have jointly defined. The spatial analysis will utilize GIS technology for mapping out plausible development trajectories in selected regions, and use of spatial analysis techniques to link and explore implications to marine ecosystems and vice versa. The temporal analysis using system dynamics modelling will link economic development with impact on nature through clearly devised causal relationships and feedback loops. A key research challenge will be to capture the complexity of the blue economy and marine ecosystems in a combined analysis that address key uncertainties, barriers, and opportunities connected to spatial conflicts and the need to safeguard ocean health.