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Review
. 2025;4(1):26.
doi: 10.1038/s44183-025-00129-2. Epub 2025 May 21.

The opportunity for climate action through climate-smart Marine Spatial Planning

Ana M Queirós  1   2 , Talya Ten Brink  3 , Maria Bas  4 , Christopher J Sweeting  5 , Sian McGuinness  5 , Hugh Edwards  6 , Elizabeth Talbot  1 , Patrick Berg Sørdahl  7 , Christian Lønborg  8 , Shayna R Deecker-Simon  9 , Michael Elliott  10   11 , Rafael Sardá  12 , Jose A Fernades-Salvador  13 , Christina Pretty  9 , Riku Varjopuro  14 , Elina A Virtanen  14 , Elena Gissi  15   16 , Katherine Yates  17 , Andrea Morf  18 , Catarina Frazão-Santos  19   20   21 , Inne Withouck  22 , Matthew Frost  1 , Marta Coll  4   23 , Kira Gee  24 , Caitriona Nic Aonghusa  25
Affiliations
Review

The opportunity for climate action through climate-smart Marine Spatial Planning

Ana M Queirós et al. NPJ Ocean Sustain. 2025.

Abstract

Despite global climate-driven change in marine ecosystems and associated economic sectors, climate-smart Marine Spatial Planning (CSMSP) implementation remains limited. This joint perspective from across the climate research and Marine Spatial Planning policy interface discusses reasons for CSMSP's slow pace (blockers) and shares operational examples about how CSMSP is working around the world (enablers). Learning from national CSMSP contexts can help deliver needed and faster international collaboration on climate action.

Keywords: Climate-change adaptation; Climate-change ecology; Climate-change impacts; Climate-change mitigation; Climate-change policy; Conservation biology; Ecological modelling; Economics; Ecosystem services; Environmental economics; Environmental impact; Geography; Macroecology; Projection and prediction; Socioeconomic scenarios; Sustainability.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interestsC.F.S. is an Editor-in-Chief (co) and E.G. and R.V. are Guest Editors of npj Ocean Sustainability but were not involved in the peer-review process or decision-making for this manuscript. The authors declare no other conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Enablers and blockers of climate-smart Marine Spatial Planning (MSP).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. What evidence is needed to support climate-smart Marine Spatial Planning (MSP)?.
Workshop discussion focused specifically on exploring the perspectives of practitioners and researchers on what data are needed to further support the development of climate-smart MSP, through science-policy collaboration. It emerged that while some types of data appeared to be relevant from both lenses, many did not. The diagram identifies key gaps between the data needs of practitioners and data provision by researchers. Such disconnect may explain some of the slower progress in aspects of climate-smart MSP development. Key areas identified by both practitioners and researchers as areas where essential data gaps remain included: (1) Assessments of the economic, environmental and social impacts of climate change; (2) clearer definitions of priority needs for conservation in planning areas (e.g. biodiversity, carbon sequestration, fish stocks, etc.), and (3) a better understanding and modelling the displacement of existing human activities resulting from climate change and their ecosystem effects. Greater efforts in science-policy collaborations in these key areas may thus help accelerate the delivery of climate actions through MSP, especially in support of adaptation.
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