Elsevier

Marine Policy

Volume 132, October 2021, 104648
Marine Policy

Short communication
Addressing the pollution control potential of marine spatial planning for shipping activity

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2021.104648Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Critical review of maritime governance on environmental performance of shipping.

  • Relevance and advantages of MSP as an alternative pollution control mechanism.

  • Feasibility of stringent regional anti-pollution shipping regulatory initiatives by MSP.

Abstract

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) was designed to replace the contemporary fragmented system of sectoral decision making in order to reduce the existing over regulations with a coordinated and coherent spatial allocation system for marine users. MSP was also adopted as a tool for protecting the marine environment and support ecosystem based sustainable sea use management. One of the activities MSP is aiming to address is shipping, to date which is largely managed through regional sectoral approaches and regulations set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). However, in the field of marine environmental protection, IMO welcomes regional initiatives and even supports them through its Special Areas, Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas (PSSA) and the Port State Control provisions. This research therefore aims to open up new perspectives to the potential function of MSP at the crossroads of environmental protection and maritime transport by analyzing the synergies of MSP with the PSSA regime. Finally, this study concludes that, by introducing spatially explicit regulations, MSP may offer opportunities to enhance regional efforts on reducing pollution from shipping activity within the global legal framework.

Introduction

Most activities taking place in the marine environment are in some ways linked to the shipping activity [1]. The concern about marine environmental impacts from shipping is rising as globally the trend of this activity was projected to increase, and even likely to accelerate [2]. Currently the notable environmental impacts from shipping at sea include air pollution [3], illegal or accidental oil discharges [4], dumping of hazardous wastes and garbage [5], discharge of sewage [6], underwater noise [7], contamination from toxic anti-fouling hull paints [8], and the alien invasive species introduced by ballast water [9]. Despite the International Maritime Organization (IMO)1 being the global regulator for shipping activity [1], enforcement of its adopted rules is not addressed in much detail, and the practical implementation is left entirely to the individual signatories to the IMO conventions [10]. Also, not all the IMO Member States are the signatories to the entire set of its environmental protection instruments. Furthermore, the duty to cooperate under the international law is also particularly challenging for the ratifying States, as it is complicated by conflicting national interests and prioritization due to disparities caused by usually different levels of developments [11]. Nevertheless, IMO has devised dedicated regulations on specific pollution loads as well as addressed the risk of pollution from navigational hazards at sea, such as: 1) International Convention on the Control of Harmful Anti-Fouling Systems on Ships, 2) International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments, 3) Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREG), and 4) International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS).

In addition, while most environmental pollution concerns at sea are currently addressed through the International Convention on Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL), certain gaps still do exist in IMO regulatory measures [10]. Therefore, dissatisfaction with the ambition levels set by the IMO, its excessive centralized and hierarchical structure [12] as well as the lack of effective implementation of its existing rules had driven regionally based initiatives, such as, the European Union (EU) legislations on shipping, use of Special Areas [10], [13], Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas (PSSA), Marine Protected Areas (MPA) [11], and the emergence of market-based voluntary enterprises [14]. Furthermore, inception of the Regional Seas Conventions,2 and the IMO Port State Control (PSC)3 for regional cooperation endorses the importance of parallel regional control measures in a global perspective [13]. The EU regional shipping regulatory initiatives in fact promote regional solutions within the international regulatory framework, and in some instances, also enhances the IMO policy mechanism through necessary amendments [10].

However, similar to any other maritime activities, shipping has been traditionally managed through sectoral approaches [2], [15] with highly fragmented maritime policies [16] in which local, national, regional, and international initiatives have to be harmonized [16], [17]. This is evident as the policies mostly address a particular problem usually in isolation from other issues [18]. Therefore, in order to reduce the existing regional over-regulation for managing all maritime activities with greater coherence, relatively recently a shift has been observed from the sectoral approaches towards more holistic approaches [16], [17]. This search for integration in maritime governance resulted in the emergence of Marine Spatial Planning (MSP), which was claimed to be an effective planning mechanism for achieving sustainable development in marine environment [19]. MSP was also designed to provide an integrated process which can effectively harmonize the contemporary fragmented sectoral approaches in managing maritime activities [2], [20]. However, in order to maintain dynamism, the synergy with other mechanisms was claimed to be important to make a difference where the general maritime governance framework fails to meet the desired expectations [10]. MSP was already considered as an approach to operationalize new modes of maritime governance [21], and was also suggested to act as a supplementary mechanism as well [10].

The benefits of MSP as a tool to deal with pertinent issues are also well documented both by the UN4 and the EU [20]. Moreover, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) [22] Article 194 requires states to take individually, or jointly, all appropriate measures as may be necessary to prevent, reduce and control pollution of the marine environment from any source, which may also include MSP for the shipping activity. Nonetheless, the regional regulatory initiatives are not independent from the global legal framework, rather they focus on the gaps and opportunities lying within the international framework [10]. This research therefore aims to open up new perspectives to the potential function of MSP at the crossroads of environmental protection and maritime transport by analyzing the synergies of MSP with the PSSA regime.

Section snippets

Methodology

This research analyzes the environmental protective measures adopted by the IMO PSSA regime based on the IMO Resolution A.982(24) [23]. The existing pollution control measures applied by the contemporary MSP processes are also analyzed based on the outcomes of the Italian ADRIPLAN [24] project for the Adriatic-Ionian region in the Mediterranean Sea, and the Plan Bothnia [25] project between Finland and Sweden in the Bothnia Sea basin within the Baltic Sea. Based on these analyses, we discuss

Results

The PSSA regime is a tool to govern the sensitive and vulnerable sea areas for special protection from maritime risks related to the international shipping activity [10]. It ensures international recognition of the significance of a designated area through identification of Associated Protective Measures (APM) on international navigation charts, and thereby informs the importance of taking extra care to the seafarers [26]. Based on the regional initiatives, worldwide IMO has designated a total

Discussion

The MSP and the PSSA are both spatial management tools, and thus can be seen as complementary mechanisms on coordinating the spatial distribution of maritime activities for achieving sustainability [11]. However, the primary purpose of the PSSA regime has been to bring together marine environmental protection mechanisms as APMs which are already existing under various international conventions [28]. Thus the effectiveness of the IMO’s PSSA mechanism has been highly contested as it bears no

Conclusion

As a more multi-faceted, and dynamic environmental regulation of shipping was already predicted [10], MSP as a tool may enhance at a regional or national level the implementation of the existing international, or regional regulations in force, such as, as suggested in Section 4, the recommendatory APMs in the PSSAs can be made mandatory if applied through MSP. Nevertheless, opportunities for comprehensive control measures through MSP can be considered beneficial for the countries where shipping

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Nazmus Sakib: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing - original draft. Elena Gissi: Supervision, Writing - review and editing. Hermanni Backer: Writing - review and editing.

Acknowledgements

This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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