Multiple interests across European coastal waters: The need for a common language

The European marine and coastal areas are large and diversified in several aspects. Alongside the increasing complexity in the marine and coastal areas, grows the need of coexistence among the different activities that for one reason or another compete at first instance for space and actual or potential resources (Dempster and Sanchez-Jerez 2008). Marine areas and coasts are also contested and frequently under a dilemma, because decisions on their conservation or development are dependent upon sometimes conflicting values, interests and political decision. The society, as a whole, may have to show different degrees of acceptance according to the decisions taken on marine and coastal uses (Brown et al. 2002). Since different marine and coastal activities advance towards dissent, economic, environmental and socio-cultural conflicts can occur when these multi-dimensional activities collide, according to different spatial contexts and institutional settings. Therefore such situations invoke adequate planning. The objective of this extended abstract is to follow a methodological approach on the evaluation of marine spatial planning in European waters by gathering perceptions from the different coastal area stakeholders towards management plans, balancing the development or preservation of their coastal areas and discuss similarities and differences between the different case-studies in analysis.