This summary details important advances for marine spatial planning and ecosystem-based management (April 2024)
Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) processes often aim to restore degraded habitats or protect existing high-quality habitats and for both outcomes, spatially explicit information on habitat condition is required. Most spatial planning approaches consider stressors in isolation – where management targets areas of high or low stressor ‘footprints’ for restoration or protection respectively.
Despite the advancement of MSP as an important tool for ecosystem-based management, there are currently limited methods for consideration of cumulative effects from multiple, interacting stressors in marine spatial planning processes.
