University of Hamburg: 11-13th September 2019

Under the EU Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) Directive, Member States are tasked with the preparation of maritime spatial plans by 2021. These plans are required to take account of land-sea interactions. Experience to date, however, indicates that MSP occupies a different institutional and policy space to land-based terrestrial spatial planning. At the same time as MSP is becoming established as a formal policy instrument applied in a coordinated manner across Europe, European spatial planning has reached an impasse, with a discernible shift away from ambitious spatial strategies over the last two decades. Furthermore, as policies and practices of integrated coastal zone management are displaced through a focus of attention on MSP, there is a risk of a ‘new coastal squeeze’ where the land and marine become institutionalised as distinct policy spaces. This interdisciplinary workshop aims to explore and critically reflect on the capacity for MSP and spatial planning more broadly to address the challenges posed by the sustainable governance of the land-sea interface. In particular, we will focus on the spatial dimensions of MSP and spatial planning at the coast. Key topics for discussion and reflection include the capacity of MSP to work with relational connections across space and the potential to engage with place-based knowledges and multiple ways of knowing the sea.

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