Multi-Objective Planning
Perhaps the most important challenge for marine planning is to explicitly consider multiple management objectives across different sectors, such as energy production, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable fisheries. Examining trade-offs among objectives and alternative scenarios for meeting objectives represent the most rapidly developing area of marine planning. A closely related challenge is the requirement that the planning objectives are clear and stakeholders are engaged. Ecosystem-based management (EBM) and marine spatial planning (MSP) are frameworks for multi-objective planning.
Interactive Decision Support
The future of marine planning and management lies in interactive decision support systems (DSS), which provide transparency and engage a diverse array of people in the planning process. While decision support systems are not a new concept, the latest generation of Web technologies enables important changes in how people interact with data, information, and each other during the marine planning process.