VAPEM – Tool for Environmental Assessment and Marine Spatial Planning

What is it?

The VAPEM tool is designed to assist managers and policy-makers in decision-making related to the sustainable use of the sea. Its main objective is:

• Integrate the Environmental Factor: Ensure that ecological and environmental aspects are considered rigorously and early in the Marine Spatial Planning process.
• Identification of Optimal Zones: Help identify the most appropriate areas for the development and implementation of new maritime activities (such as offshore aquaculture, marine renewable energies, etc.) and, at the same time, protect sensitive areas.
• Conflict Management: Analyse and manage use conflicts between different maritime activities (fishing, navigation, conservation, etc.) and the compatibilities with the environment.

How does it work?

VAPEM operates by analysing and combining various layers of information to produce useful knowledge for marine management and spatial planning:

• Ecosystem Services Mapping: Evaluates and maps the services provided by the marine ecosystem (such as food provision, climate regulation, or support for culture and tourism).
• Environmental Risk Maps: Generates maps showing the vulnerability of the ecosystem to human pressures and the ecological footprint of different activities.
• Decision Support Models: Uses models to create future scenarios and assess how different management

Key Benefits

• Solid Scientific Basis: Provides managers and policy-makers with the best available scientific and technical information to justify their decisions, reducing uncertainty.
• Scenario Analysis: Allows the creation and simulation of different future use scenarios (e.g., where to locate aquaculture, wind farms or marine reserves), assessing in advance the ecological and socio-economic consequences of each option.
• Identification of Optimal Zones: Helps industry identify the most suitable areas to establish new activities (such as marine renewable energies or offshore aquaculture), considering not only technical and economic feasibility, but also environmental sensitivity.
• Ecological Integration: Ensures that marine spatial planning complies with environmental sustainability and biodiversity protection objectives, by mapping and assessing the ecosystem’s capacity to withstand human activities.
• Impact Assessment: Facilitates the assessment of risks and vulnerability of the marine environment to human pressures, enabling the adoption of preventive and mitigation measures.
• Protection of Sensitive Areas: Facilitates the identification of marine areas that require special protection, ensuring that vulnerable habitats and species are not affected by the location of human activities.
• Ecosystem Services Mapping: By valuing and mapping ecosystem services, the intrinsic and economic value of nature is highlighted, strengthening arguments for its conservation.
  Conflict Resolution: Helps prevent and manage use conflicts between sectors (e.g., fishing vs. wind energy vs. conservation), creating zoning plans that maximise compatibility between activities.
• Improved Competitiveness: By providing certainty about suitable development areas, it improves the competitiveness of maritime sectors (Industry), facilitating investment and the sustainable development of the “Blue Economy”.
• Transparency: As a tool that integrates and visualises data, it promotes transparency in the planning process, making zoning decisions more understandable.
• Participation: The knowledge generated by VAPEM can be used in participatory processes to actively involve public and private stakeholders (fishers, NGOs, companies) and coastal communities in the discussion and validation of planning plans.