Marine Spatial Planning: Assessment of the intensity of conflicting activities in the marine environment of the Aegean Sea

In coastal and marine environments, numerous activities take place which might result in two types of conflicts: the user-user conflicts and the user-environment ones. Marine/Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) is a recently developed framework with the aim to assess and resolve this kind of conflicts. In this paper, a methodology for ranking the detected conflicts in the marine environment according to their intensity is presented, using a combination of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Multiple Criteria Analysis (MCA). The Cyclades in the Aegean Sea, Eastern Mediterranean, was used as the case study area. The methodology involves the development of a geospatial database, the creation of a matrix of conflicts in order to define the conflicting activities based on the current legislation, the identification and delineation of the conflicting activities in the area using spatial analysis tools, and the application of MCA for evaluating and ranking the intensity of these conflicts. Finally, suggestions for supporting effective MSP in the study area are made. •Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) aims to optimization of the spatial allocation of marine activities.•The identification of conflicts in the marine environment is implemented using spatial analysis tools in a GIS environment.•Multiple Criteria Analysis ranks the intensity of the conflicts of detected activities based on specific criteria.•The conflicts with higher intensity need to be assessed with priority in the framework of MSP.