Research and analysis: Co-location displacement in the marine area, the likelihood and impact on marine activities

Requirement R016

Requirement detail

Marine plans form a plan-led system for marine activities. Marine plans will ensure that different and competing activities are managed in such a way that they contribute to the achievement of sustainable development. A key issue in all marine plan areas is the optimisation of space through promoting compatibility and encouraging co-existence between different activities. As such co-existence or displacement of activities should be considered within marine licensing.

An evaluation approach providing integrated consideration of the environmental, social and economic impacts of co-location/displacement has been proposed in research project MMO 1049 but further research and development is required to put this approach into working practice.

Plan level evaluation of the impacts and risks for multiple use areas is required to inform plan development. Using an improved approach when identifying the issues stemming from co-location and displacement of activities at a plan area scale would allow better consideration of such issues at the project level through marine licensing.

A process has been scoped out but would need further development and incorporation into licensing processes to enable balanced consideration of co-location/displacement impacts. This project should build on the outputs of MMO 1049, which outlines a proposed framework of comparing co-existence versus no-coexistence and makes recommendations for next steps in terms of this piece of work.