A review of support tools to assess multi-sector interactions in the emerging offshore Blue Economy

Multiple ocean sectors compete for space and resources, creating conflicts but also opportunities to plan synergistic outcomes that benefit multiple sectors. Planning management are increasingly informed by qualitative quantitative methods assessing multi-sector interactions identify trade-offs synergies among with the environment, there is a need critically review alignment of these tools requirements Blue Economy stakeholders. Through systematic literature review, an operational maturity analysis, survey stakeholders, we found most well-developed between industries, spatial prioritization tools, such as Marxan multi-criteria decision support tools; static cumulative effect mapping. More complex process/dynamic ecosystem oceanographic models well developed single sectors, particularly water quality assessments commercial fisheries, have been less commonly applied in contexts. Our stakeholder highlighted environmental suitability sites infrastructure conjunction impacts, decommissioning considerations requires: 1) toolbox approaches covers range spatial, temporal ecological scales; 2) capture feedbacks without being unnecessarily complicated (i.e., tractable use allow effective communication findings); 3) continued synthesis used across fishing, aquaculture, offshore renewable energy, engineering.