Europe’s seas have become important in terms of policy making on both European and national level. The exploitation of seas and coastal areas for economic purposes is becoming increasingly important, but there are also growing concerns on environmental issues.

The main objective of the project MSP-LSI was to improve stakeholders’ planning processes through the coordinated, comparable and systematic acquisition and analysis of both marine and terrestrial data and information at a European, regional and sub-regional level. The study contributed to evidence-based, coherent and transparent decision-making in EU Member States considering land-sea interactions (LSI) in the development of national maritime spatial plans. It will also contribute to the extended use of territorial evidence (both quantitative and qualitative), thereby adding a European LSI perspective to other fields of policy development. 

Five case study areas were selected for the research, covering different regional seas and types of coastline.