Conclusions: Benefits, lessons learned, and future challenges of marine spatial planning

This article summarizes briefly the principal conclusions from papers presented in this special issue on marine spatial planning. It identifies potential economic, ecological, and administrative benefits (and costs) that might be realized from the implementation of MSP. Finally, the article summarize lessons learned and identifies future challenges and directions for MSP, including the development of international guidelines for its implementation.     

导管架式海上风力发电支撑结构振型扩阶方法

提出1种适用于海上风力发电支撑结构的模态振型扩阶方法。该方法无需借助转换矩阵实现振型扩阶,而是依靠实测模态并通过修正有限元模型对应振型在未测试自由度的振型值而获得空间完备的模态振型,并且所发展的方法在一定程度上可以忽略有限元模型存在的建模误差,是1种直接的估算方法,计算效率相对较高。文中采用三桩导管架式海上风力发电支撑结构验证提出方法的正确性以及在低阶模态振型扩阶上的优越性。数值结果表明,该方法对传感器位置、数量依赖程度低,尤其对于海上风电结构,仅在结构的水深较浅部位布置少数传感器即可比较精确的实现低阶模态振型扩阶,具有良好的工程应用前景。     

Coming to the table: Early stakeholder engagement in marine spatial planning

From 2009 to 2011, marine spatial planning (MSP) rapidly gained visibility in the United States as a promising ocean management tool. A few small-scale planning efforts were completed in state waters, and the Obama Administration proposed a framework for large-scale regional MSP throughout the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. During that same time period, the authors engaged a variety of U.S ocean stakeholders in a series of dialogs with several goals: to share information about what MSP is or could be, to hear stakeholder views and concerns about MSP, and to foster better understanding between those who depend on ocean resources for their livelihood and ocean conservation advocates. The stakeholder meetings were supplemented with several rounds of in-depth interviews and a survey. Despite some predictable areas of conflict, project participants agreed on a number of issues related to stakeholder engagement in MSP: all felt strongly that government planners need to engage outsiders earlier, more often, more meaningfully, and through an open and transparent process. Equally important, the project affirmed the value of bringing unlike parties together at the earliest opportunity to learn, talk, and listen to others with whom they rarely engage.     

Temporal and spatial variability in shallow- and deep-water populations of the invasive Caulerpa racemosa var. cylindracea in the Western Mediterranean

The invasive green alga Caulerpa racemosa var. cylindracea represents an important threat to the diversity of Mediterranean benthic coastal ecosystems by interfering with native species and modifying benthic assemblages. The present study deals, for the first time, with the temporal and spatial variability of the biomass and phenology of C. racemosa considering both deep- and shallow-water populations. Two sampling depths (30 and 10 m) were sampled at three different rocky bottom sites every 3 months in the Archipelago of Cabrera National Park (Western Mediterranean). All morphometric variables analysed showed a spatial variation and temporal patterns depending on depth. Between depths, C. racemosa biomass, stolon length, number of fronds and frond length were usually significantly higher at deep-water populations, suggesting that C. racemosa grows better in deep-waters. Deep- and shallow-water populations displayed a high temporal variation although no evidence of seasonal patterns was found, in contrast with what has been reported by other authors. The sources of this variability are still unknown but probably both physical factors and differential herbivory pressures display a key role.     

Implementation of the European Water Framework Directive: Natural variability associated with the CARLIT method on the rocky shores of the Ligurian Sea (Italy)

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) 2000/60/EC, adopted by the European Community in 2000 with the goal of maintaining and improving the aquatic environments, requires that member states achieve and maintain a good ecological status of all water bodies by 2015. In the marine context, the ecological status has to be quantified applying indexes based on appropriate key biological elements, which allow the categorization of water bodies into five Ecological Status (ES) classes. The CARLIT index is a cartographic monitoring tool enabling the Ecological Quality Ratio (EQR) to be calculated using macroalgae in coastal hard bottoms as a key biological element; at present it is being applied in Spain, France and Italy. To detect actual changes of water quality and, consequently, rely on the application of indexes for the assessment of the ecological status in the marine environment, it is necessary to evaluate their sensitivity to natural variability at different temporal and spatial scales. In this study we present a first quantification of natural (spatial and temporal) variability of EQR‐CARLIT quality assessment in 2006 and 2007 along the Ligurian coast (North‐Western Mediterranean, Italy). The EQR‐CARLIT values recorded along the Ligurian coastline show that natural variability of EQR‐CARLIT is low and that it does not affect the attribution of a given stretch of coast to a particular ES class, in agreement with the major human pressures acting in the area (urbanization, river load, sea‐farming). A small‐scale variability was detected, strengthening the use of cartography of the whole rocky shore, whenever possible, or, alternatively, the assessment of the ecological status for long stretches of coast, to encompass the small‐scale variability due to local factors.     

杭州湾海域水体悬沙粒度统计分析

利用2000年9月在杭州湾进行的原型水文泥沙测验所获取的648个悬沙粒度样品,进行了样品粒度统计分析,结果表明:在杭州湾测验区域,粒径为4.00～20.20μm的悬沙出现频率最高;悬沙的中值粒径值自东向西迅速增大;北岸海域悬沙的中值粒径值大于南岸海域悬沙的中值粒径值。     

Assessing potential spatial and temporal conflicts in Washington's marine waters

This paper uses spatial, temporal, and use-intensity data for 27 major marine uses in Washington waters to feature a method for assessing potential use conflicts in a variety of scenarios. The study represents a first step towards quantifying potential conflicts within Washington’s Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) study area by using a cumulative analysis to highlight high- and low-use intensity areas and the novel Marine Potential Conflict Index (MPCI), which incorporates space, time, and intensity of use, to quantify pairwise potential conflicts between uses. About 10% of pairs of uses do not overlap spatially and are likely compatible with one another. Temporally, the number of uses peaks in July and August and falls during January and February. Additionally, the MPCI identified three important use types with a substantial degree of potential conflict: commercial fishing, tribal fishing, and shipping. External data were used in three cases to ground-truth the analysis, as a limited test of its utility in managing any potential conflict. This article assesses the extent of Washington’s existing marine uses along spatial, temporal, and intensity axes, and more broadly provides a straightforward way to examine potential conflicts between marine uses.     

The marine and coastal access act—A hornets' nest?

The Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 is now enacted into law. This paper looks at predictions made about new law by one of the authors, Peter Jones, in his paper The Marine Bill: Cornucopia or Pandora's Box [1] and assesses how successful the Act has been in turning aspirations into law. The paper focuses on the following areas: ecosystem protection, stakeholder engagement, marine spatial planning and the provision of a network of highly protected marine reserves, and raises concerns that the ecosystem approach has progressively been dropped in the drafting process of the legislation. Concerns are raised that the new Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities have similar inherent conflicts of interest to those exhibited by Sea Fisheries Committees, which they sought to replace. The effectiveness of marine planning is questioned, as there appear to be inbuilt loopholes for public authorities to avoid complying with the marine plans. The draft marine policy statement (MPS), published in July 2010, includes appropriate environmental safeguards, but the MPS has not yet been formally adopted. The absence of a concrete target for highly protected marine reserves means there is a danger that designations under the Act may have little effect on the ground. In conclusion the Act provides some new mechanisms for marine protection, but arguably does not yet provide a framework for implementing the ecosystem approach and is not an end in itself.     

A Method for Automatically Selecting Aids to Navigation Based on their Spatial Influence Domains

To address the limitations of manually selecting aids to navigation (AtNs) on charts, a method for automatically selecting AtNs based on their spatial influence domains (SIDs) is proposed. First, the associations between the spatial attributes of an AtN are analyzed. Second, an SID of the AtN is defined, and a model of the SID is constructed based on the associations between the spatial attributes. Third, the importance of the location of the AtN is weighted based on the SID model. Fourth, an algorithm to automatically select AtNs based on the maximum coverage of the SIDS of preselected AtNs is developed. Finally, several AtNs are selected automatically using the algorithm. The experimental results demonstrate that (1) the proposed method can automatically select AtNs and the results comply with the requirements; (2) the automatic selection can eliminate the human-induced errors or the inconsistent results of manual selections from different operators; and (3) the efficiency of the proposed method is higher than that of current manual methods.