The sea is busy. Shipping lanes, offshore wind farms, fishing grounds, cables, aquaculture, tourism and protected areas all compete for space. Marine spatial planning is the process of deciding what happens where, so that these uses can coexist and the marine environment is protected.
What makes it climate-smart
Traditional plans tend to treat the sea as fixed. But climate change is moving fish stocks, shifting habitats and changing conditions for the industries that depend on them. Climate-smart marine spatial planning builds those changes into the plan: it supports climate mitigation, such as siting offshore renewables, and adaptation, such as protecting habitats that will matter more as conditions change.
What recent research shows
A 2025 study in npj Ocean Sustainability by Queirós and colleagues found that climate-smart marine spatial planning is being taken up slowly, despite the clear effects of climate change on marine ecosystems and the sectors that depend on them. The authors set out what holds progress back, give practical examples from countries already doing it, and argue that sharing those lessons could speed up international action.
A second 2025 study in the same journal, by Rekola and colleagues, looked at nine jurisdictions around the North Sea and Baltic Sea. It found that climate mitigation, especially offshore wind, is now largely built into their plans, while adaptation is less developed and often still at the level of ideas. Coordination and evaluation are emerging, but formal climate reporting is largely absent.
Why it matters
For conservation, climate-smart planning helps protect the places marine life will need in future, not just where it is today. For the blue economy, it gives industry clearer and longer-lasting decisions about where activity can happen. These goals are complementary: conservation and economic development both depend on getting the plan right.
Mereweg’s expertise
This is a field Mereweg knows from the inside. Nancy Cross, a consultant with Mereweg, carried out research hosted by the HELCOM Secretariat (the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission) exploring climate-smart marine spatial planning to advance biodiversity conservation and climate resilience. You can read more about her work on our About Us page.
