The Nordic uniqueness is our willingness to work together, and the NordicSpatial tool enables us to do so in marine spatial planning matters. The Nordic countries can hence lead the way in responsibly maintaining their sea basins by balancing the need for protection and harvesting of natural resources in a knowledge based and holistic way, in cooperation with neighboring countries.
Furthermore, the NordicSpatial project supports the Nordic Council of Ministers objective on becoming the world’s most sustainable and integrated region in the world by enabling the Nordic and Baltic countries to include other nations’ data, possibilities and challenges into their national marine spatial plans and cooperate in solving environmental and climatic challenges, as well as managing our resources responsibly and sustainably.
Next Steps
The NordicSpatial tool is currently a demonstrator tool, demonstrating functionality in real scenarios with authoritative data, in which we can show cross-border and cross-sectoral cooperation. In order to harvest the full potential of the NordicSpatial project, the demonstrator will need to be further developed in cooperation with stakeholders to make it a fully operational marina spatial management tool.
Once further developed the NordicSpatial tool has great potential to better support cross-border marine spatial planning processes with the aim of fit-for-purpose services and enhanced reusability.
Norway has recently decided to replace its current Marine Spatial Management Tool with a new tool based on the platform from NordicSpatial. This can encourage increased us of the tool by neighboring countries – and lay the foundation for making NordicSpatial the preferred tool for marine spatial planning across the Nordic and Baltic countries.