Climate-Informed Coastal & Marine Spatial Planning Guide
Overview
Coastal and marine spatial planning (CMSP) is a science-based, collaborative process used to sustainably manage resources, interests, and activities among diverse users and sectors. Climate change is already influencing the location of some populations of commercially important fisheries, marine transportation routes, and the type and number of tourists visiting particular areas. Climate-informed CMSP is a dynamic planning process that integrates the long-term impacts of climate change, along with different uses, values, and needs, into the planning and management of resilient coastal and marine environments. Regardless of whether your focus is efficient and sustainable harvest, conservation, or achieving clarity about possible zoning for marine transportation and energy, climate change has the potential to affect everything. This guide provides case studies, articles, and tools related to climate change, ocean acidification, and CMSP to support your coastal and marine management and decision making.
The goal of this Climate-informed CMSP Guide is to help managers and planners consider how to integrate climate change into CMSP. The purpose of this guide is not to recommend another planning framework, but instead to provide guidance that can be used with any coastal and marine plans regardless of the process used.
This guide offers key components to aid in the development of climate-informed CMS plans. It is designed to be flexible and non-linear, broadly applicable to all planning processes, and may be used at any stage of the planning process or during plan revisions to ensure that CMSP is robust in a changing climate. It is presented in 4 steps comprising 12 actions and features case study examples from coastal and marine planning efforts:
- Scope: Set Goals & Objectives
- Action 1. Identify the planning context
- Action 2. Inventory assets
- Action 3. Scope climate impacts on major sectors
- Assess: Consider Future Conditions
- Action 4. Adjust existing data and maps to reflect potential changes over time
- Action 5. Create new data, maps, and conservation targets to reflect climate-specific concerns
- Action 6. Emphasize connections between terrestrial and ocean systems
- Design: Identify Climate Adaptation Options
- Action 7. Limit development in vulnerable areas
- Action 8. Engage stakeholders to strengthen public buy-in and support
- Action 9. Use climate-related information to evaluate and/or prioritize uses
- Action 10. Implement climate mitigation and adaptation options
- Integrate: Implementation & Evaluation
- Action 11. Acknowledge and document uncertainty
- Action 12. Implement monitoring and adaptive management to document changes, track effectiveness, and make necessary adjustments to actions
Featured Case Studies & Resources
- Incorporating climate change in marine use plans for British Columbia’s First Nations
- BaltSeaPlan: Seven nations, one vision for an inland sea
- New York Ocean Action Plan: Managing coastal, marine, and land-based activities
- Planning for multiple uses in Massachusetts state waters
- Including a range of climate effects in planning for Rhode Island’s coastal zone and state waters
- Piloting a marine spatial planning approach in Scotland’s Orkney Islands
- Using a Precautionary Approach to Manage North Pacific Fisheries Under Uncertainty
- Designing a resilient network of marine protected areas in the Coral Triangle
- NOAA Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning
- UNESCO Marine Spatial Planning Initiative
- Orchestrating Our Oceans: Effectively Implementing Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning in the U.S.
- Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment
- Ocean Acidification: A National Strategy to Meet the Challenges of a Changing Ocean
- The State of Climate Adaptation in U.S. Marine Fisheries Management
- Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability
- The Impacts of Climate Change in Coastal Marine Systems
- Climate Change Adaptation for Coral Triangle Communities: A Guide for Vulnerability Assessment and Local Early Action Planning
- Scanning the Conservation Horizon: A Guide to Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment
- Scanning the Conservation Horizon: A Guide to Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment (webinar and handout)
- Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Tool for Coastal Habitats (CCVATCH)
- NOAA Fish Species Climate Vulnerability Assessment Methodology
- Populations at Risk
- NatureServe Climate Change Vulnerability Index
- Synthesis of Adaptation Options for Coastal Areas
- The State of Marine and Coastal Adaptation in North America: A Synthesis of Emerging Ideas
- Coastal Adaptation Strategies: Case Studies
- Greening Shorelines to Enhance Resilience: An Evaluation of Approaches for Adaptation to Sea Level Rise
- Adaptation Monitoring and Assessment Tool (AMAT)
- National Adaptation Forum Webinar Series: Climate Adaptation Evaluation and Monitoring
- Monitoring & Evaluation for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience: A Synthesis of Tools, Frameworks and Approaches: Second Edition
- Making Adaptation Count: Concepts and Options for Monitoring and Evaluation of Climate Change Adaptation