MacCabe Durney Barnes

Horizon scanning and foresight activities provide important evidence and data to support strategic decision making. This includes stocktaking of national, EU and international current and future policies, regulations, and initiatives with potential relevance to Ireland’s blue economy. A number of marine foresight initiatives have been carried out at EU and international level, however these need to reviewed in the context of Ireland’s blue economy and the advancement of IMP in Ireland.

This project reviewed the available modelling and decision support tools for MSP. These related to data provision, pressures and impacts of human activities. This project identified best practice technical tools in the Irish context.

This project explored and developed the evidence on climate change implications for MSP. A review of existing MSP was carried out to summarise best practice approaches for incorporating climate change in marine spatial plans.

This project involved data collection, collation and analytical studies to identify, characterise and map Ireland’s marine provisioning, regulating / maintenance and cultural services. There was a lack of information available about marine ecosystem services in Ireland.

This project built on Data Discovery, Collation and Gap Analysis for Spatial Representation. This project aimed to provide up-to-date spatial and temporal information by filling in gaps in knowledge required to support MSP, regarding human activities, pressures, resource distribution etc.

This project aimed to identify and map datasets of relevance to the MSP process and review their validity. It provided up-to-date spatial and temporal information on marine ecosystems and human activities taking place within Ireland’s maritime domain to support marine spatial planning.