Abstract
Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) will become an increasingly important issue for the shipping sector over the next few years. Maritime professionals need to engage with other users of waterways space, from both a sea and shore perspective, and to take part in international, regional, national and local MSP debates, to ensure that the needs of the shipping sector are taken into full consideration and that the sector understands the needs of other marine users and resources.
The Nautical Institute, together with the World Ocean Council, has put together this operational guide to the risks and benefits connected with the shipping industry that should be considered during the MSP process. This guidance seeks to outline just some of the many opportunities for engagement and issues to consider. It should be noted that this guidance only summarises some of the main issues, but does however provide reference to other industry documents for further technical and procedural details.
This guide has been specifically produced to aid maritime professionals to participate in MSP developments. For the purpose of brevity the guide assumes a certain level of maritime expertise and has not sought to clarify a number of maritime terms and definitions. Should this guide be used by non-mariners (and we hope it is) it may be useful to seek further explanation of some issues by those familiar with maritime operations.