Enhancing Adaptive Capacity for Sustainable Blue Growth (BlueAdapt)
Public description of the results at the end of the project
The project aimed to develop adaptive management solutions that enable good ecological status of waters and economically and socially sustainable blue growth, as well as improve adaptive capacity to climate change and the effects of human pressures on waters. Multidisciplinary research team in collaboration with stakeholders developed innovative solutions to promote sustainable economic growth that relies on aquatic resources. The project developed an extensive model system for inland and coastal waters, future socioeconomic scenarios, regional transition arenas, analysis of blue growth potential and assessments of legal regulation, and identified development needs and solutions for regulation and management. In order to reconcile the sustainability transformation of the blue economy with ecological boundaries, the project produced a Blue Transition Roadmap, which presents sector-specific policies to accelerate renewal and reduce environmental impacts.
Public description of the goals at the beginning of the project
Blue treasures – rivers, lakes and marine waters – provide great potential for economic growth. Activities, like agriculture, peat and hydropower production threaten those, and climate change impacts food and energy systems creating socio-ecological risks. Curbing negative trends into opportunities like transition to new business models, calls for adaptive governance, which is agile, predictable, and science-based. The project develops a science/policy-interface by integrating cutting edge ecological modelling with economic, policy and regulatory analysis. Together with firms we examine how value-creating solutions support blue growth. Analysing obstacles to adaptation and best ways the government can promote transition to sustainable blue growth, we craft regulatory strategies for the use of new information. With stakeholders we co-create solutions for sustainable growth and good ecological status of waters and compile them into Adaptive Governance Framework for Blue Economy (AGORA).
