Marine biological valuation of the shallow Belgian coastal zone: a space-use conflict example within the context of marine spatial planning

The Belgian coastal zone hosts a complex of space-use and resource-use activities with a myriad of pressures. Specifically at the beaches, predictions on sea-level rise, storms and flood risk from the North Sea have led to several big coastal defence projects. Management of sandy beaches is a multi-faceted and complex endeavor, where the interests of several stakeholders need to be combined.In this paper, we used the marine biological valuation (BV) method in order to (1) analyse the spatial structure of the intertidal and shallow subtidal Belgian coastal zone; and (2) explore the applications... Mehr ...