Marine Policy 127 (2021) 104329

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Marine Policy
journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/marpol

A bibliometric assessment of progress in marine spatial planning

Vasiliki I. Chalastani a, *, Vasiliki K. Tsoukala a, Harry Coccossis b, Carlos M. Duarte c
a
Laboratory of Harbor Works, Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens
(NTUA), Zografou 15780, Greece
b
Department of Planning and Regional Development, School of Engineering, University of Thessaly (UTH), Volos 38334, Greece
c
Red Sea Research Center (RSRC) and Computational Bioscience Research Center (CBRC), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal
23955, Saudi Arabia

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Marine/maritime spatial planning (MSP) is a process to optimise marine space allocation to various activities and
Marine spatial planning the environment by avoiding negative interactions, improving synergies, thereby helping the advance towards a
Bibliometric survey sustainable ocean economy. A bibliometric progress assessment of MSP was performed for the period 2003–2019
Maritime activities
to analyse 1323 papers published in the ISI Web of Science and Scopus databases. The analysis revealed that MSP
Ecosystem-based management
is a relatively new, however rapidly growing research field, as the number of MSP publications increased
exponentially, at about 44% per year, between 2003 and 2019. The dominance of the journal “Marine Policy” on
MSP publications and the presence of leading authors with government-related positions (i.e. 11%, n = 981)
indicate the linkage of MSP to policy and governance. Almost 70% of the MSP publications are case-based
indicating MSP’s practical orientation. More than half of the authors leading MSP publications are affiliated
in Europe, while the majority of reported MSP case studies are undertaken within the European Union. Most,
63%, of all MSP studies (n = 1323) approach the matter in a qualitative manner, whereas only 22% of the
quantitative and/or modelling studies (n = 489) are describing MSP applications, suggesting that the develop­
ment of MSP quantitative and/or modelling methodologies is still at its infancy. The dominance of ecologists
among the leading authors of MSP publications outlines the ecosystem-based approach used to address MSP. This
bibliometric study draws the landscape of the current state and trends of MSP, outlines gaps and indicates the
roadmap for further developments to assist MSP processes.

1. Introduction
The ocean is a key life-support system of the biosphere. It plays a
major role in climate regulation, sustains a vibrant economy and con­
tributes to food security worldwide [1]. The ocean currently contributes
2.5% to the global gross domestic product (GDP) and provides
employment to 1.5% of the global workforce, with an estimated output
of US$1.5 trillion in 2010, which is expected to double by 2030 [2]. The
conflict between the increased human demands for ocean space and the
decline in marine life under human pressures [3] challenge established
institutional governance arrangements.
Traditional ocean governance is based on sectorial arrangements
that are poorly suited to coordinate and balance actions across vastly
different sectors in size and requirements [4]. As a result, marine or
maritime spatial planning (MSP) emerged as a promising management
approach to transform conflicts into solutions, while managing multiple
activities and users at sea [5,6]. MSP is described as the public process of
analysing and allocating the spatial and temporal distribution of human
activities in marine areas to simultaneously achieve predefined ecolog­
ical, economic, and social objectives, specified through a political pro­
cess [7,8]. Therefore, MSP constitutes a promising tool to optimise
marine space allocation to various activities and assist with efforts to
reduce human pressures and rebuild marine life to achieve the Sus­
tainable Development Goals of the United Nations (UN SDGs; [9]) [10].
The latter requires, among others, the establishment of a committed and
resilient global partnership of governments and societies aligned with
these goals, supported by coordinated policies [2]. These requirements
are in accordance with the prerequisites of successful MSP, which
involve a continuous and interactive process that requires the engage­
ment of “multiple actors and stakeholders at various governmental and
societal levels” [11] due to its “public” nature [12].
MSP was initially stimulated by international and national initiatives

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: vanesachala@mail.ntua.gr (V.I. Chalastani).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2020.104329
Received 6 October 2020; Received in revised form 18 November 2020; Accepted 22 November 2020
Available online 13 March 2021
0308-597X/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
V.I. Chalastani et al.
aiming to assess the effectiveness of established marine protected areas
(MPAs) [13]. MSP dates back to the 1980s, when the original zoning
plan of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) in Australia was
perceived as a “pioneering example of MSP” [14]. Since then, the MSP
concept has expanded by incorporating more marine uses, providing a
practical approach towards implementing long-term ecosystem-based
management (EBM) [15,16]. The growing interest for MSP is reflected in
explicit policy mandates. In 2010, US Executive Order 13547 [17] was
signed to allow for the development and certification of coastal and
marine spatial plans in relation to nine regions of the exclusive economic
zone (EEZ) of the USA [18]. However, the Order was revoked in June
Fig. 1. Flow diagram describing the methodology followed for the bibliometric assessment on marine spatial planning for the period 2003–2019 hereto reported.
2
Marine Policy 127 (2021) 104329
2018 [19] before implementation in all nine regions was achieved. The
European Parliament published the 89/EU Directive in 2014, estab­
lishing a framework mandating MSP within the European Union to
promote the sustainable growth of maritime economies, the sustainable
development of marine areas and the sustainable use of marine re­
sources [20]. Currently, national MSP policies are deployed in 22
countries, representing almost 27% of the world’s EEZs [12], while it is
expected that by 2030, at least 1/3rd of the surface area of the world’s
EEZs will have government-approved marine spatial plans [21,22].
The global expansion of the MSP framework is supported by growing
research efforts to improve the scientific underpinnings for the MSP
V.I. Chalastani et al. Marine Policy 127 (2021) 104329

process [12]. Merrie and Olsson [23] identified the first international
workshop on MSP, organised by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Ocean­
ographic Commission (IOC) in 2006, as the onset for the increase in
research effort on MSP. As MSP progresses, a number of assessments of
its tools, challenges and achievements has been conducted. Pinarbasi
et al. [5] explored the decision support tools (DSTs) developed to apply
MSP, Gissi et al. [13] examined the incorporation of climate change in
the MSP process and Frazão Santos et al. [12] assessed the global
implementation of MSP as a governance tool. However, a comprehen­
sive assessment of the development and growth of MSP as a research
programme is still pending [24]. The assessment reported hereto is
based on an extensive and systematic bibliometric survey on MSP
(2003–2019) to detect publication patterns, identify gaps and provide
insights on the evolving concept and applications of MSP as well as the
challenges ahead. In particular, the assessment includes the growth and
geographical spread of contributions to advance MSP, the research fields
involved in this effort, the methods used and the co-authorship patterns,
as well as the outlets used to communicate its results.
2. Material and methods
The bibliometric survey was conducted according to the following
steps [13]: (1) define the objectives and the research questions; (2)
perform the search on targeted databases based on specific search terms;
(3) screen the results of the search and (4) conduct the analysis [13,25,
26] based on a predetermined set of criteria to answer the research
questions of (1).
A bibliographic database was compiled from two commercial data­
bases: the ISI Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus for the time frame 2003,
when the first paper on MSP was published, to 2019, accessed in
November 2020. As the year 2020 was then incomplete, this year was
not considered in the analysis. The queries were carried out using the
following search string: topic keywords: ((“marine spatial planning”) OR
(“maritime spatial planning”)). The topic keyword refers to a search
which includes the article title, keywords and abstract. Quotation marks
were used to ensure that the search would be conducted for that
particular keyword phrase. Boolean operators were used to ascertain
that all relevant references were collected. ‘OR’ is the Boolean operator
used to ensure that either of the two keyword phrases are found, then the
bibliographic record would be counted as relevant to the search. The
English language (at least for the title and the abstract) was chosen in
order to exclude publications in other languages.
The WoS and Scopus databases returned 1031 and 1308 biblio­
graphic records respectively for the search terms used. The two sets of
references were pooled to produce the draft bibliographic database,
which was analysed using EndNote X7 for Windows (produced by
Clarivate Analytics). The database was carefully scrutinised to eliminate
records for which the authors’ names, the abstract and the full text were
not available, as well as duplicate references. In addition, papers
released both as conference papers and articles were also considered as
duplicates and only the article version was retained in the database. This
process resulted in 1323 relevant publications in total [27].
The resulting publication set (n = 1323) was analysed in two steps
(Fig. 1). First, the publications were examined to identify the dominant
patterns of the bibliographic records and provide relative insights (step
1, Fig. 1). This analysis delivered the temporal distribution of publica­
tions and authors involved, the geographic distribution of the studies,
the types of publications, the dominant journals as well as the most cited
MSP papers and the main keywords used.
VOSviewer (version 1.6.15) software [28,29] was used to perform
the bibliometric analysis related to the co-occurrence of keywords and
the co-authorship trends among all researchers in this study. This soft­
ware allows for the creation, visualisation, and exploration of maps
based on bibliometric network data. The results are displayed in clusters
to allow identifying connections among the bibliometric data. A cluster
is a set of closely related nodes where each node is assigned to exactly
one cluster. The number of clusters is determined by a resolution
parameter with positively correlated magnitude to the number of clus­
ters. The clustering technique used by VOSviewer requires an algorithm
for solving an optimisation problem. For this purpose, VOSviewer uses
the smart local moving algorithm [29]. Co-authorship patterns were
analysed to identify trends of collaboration. In addition, keywords

Table 1
Description of the criteria adopted in the second step of the bibliometric survey.
Step 2 – Methods and tools used in publications

Classification into five categories according to the affiliation of the first author:
i) academia (i.e. universities of every type);
ii) non-academic research organisations (e.g. Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institute, Hellenic Center for Marine Research);
iii) government (i.e. national institutions such as ministries and federal agencies, but also international bodies such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Involved
Cultural Organization, the World Bank, the European Union etc.) (e.g. European Environment Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration);
fields
iv) private industry (e.g. AZTI-Tecnalia); and
v) non-profit organisations (e.g. the Nature Conservancy).
The first authors were counted only once according to their latest affiliation. For the first authors with multiple affiliations for the same publication, only their first
affiliation was considered.
Classification into four categories for the publications grouped in the “academia” and “non-academic research organisations” categories as per “Involved fields”
according to both the affiliation of the first author and her/his personal academic profile:
i) ecology (including biology and geology);
Disciplines
ii) geography/planning (including oceanography);
iii) engineering; and
iv) social sciences (including policy, legal sciences and socio-ecology).
Case studies Number of case-based studies.Location of the case studies. Geographical distribution of case studies per marine provinces [31].
Classification according to the methodological approach used. Each publication was screened separately in order to be grouped into one of the following three
categories:
i) review;
ii) qualitative (i.e. does the paper assess data in a descriptive manner?); and
iii) quantitative and/or modelling (i.e. does the paper use any type of quantitative method and/or model?).
For studies that do use a quantitative and/or a modelling method as per “Methods”, how many of them do they use a quantitative approach (e.
Methods g. mapping, calculation of conflict areas) or a model (e.g. Marxan, Geographic Information System tools) particularly for marine spatial
planning?
Quantitative- Which elements have been considered in the publications with a quantitative and/or modelling approach for marine
Modelling spatial planning? The elements considered are (informed by [36]): i) marine protected areas, ii) aquaculture, iii)
Sectors
desalination, iv) fisheries, v) marine cables, vi) minerals and mining, vii) ports and shipping, viii) tourism and coastal
considered
recreation, ix) renewable energy, x) habitats and species, xi) cultural heritage, xii) military activity and xiii) policy and
law.

3
V.I. Chalastani et al.
co-occurrence was assessed since keywords constitute a neuralgic part of
a paper as they describe its content and implications with other research
fields, but also because they are used as queries to databases and in­
formation retrieval systems [30]. The number of co-occurrences of two
keywords is the number of publications in which both keywords occur
together in the title, abstract or keyword list [28,29]. Data cleaning was
performed by merging similar keywords in a “thesaurus file” inserted in
VOSviewer software (Table SM1) to indicate that different keywords in
fact refer to the same term [28].
The second phase of the analysis involved a deeper investigation of
the authors’ background and the content of the studies (step 2, Table 1,
Fig. 1). The affiliation and the public profile of the papers’ first author
were screened to examine the field of their professional background (e.g.
academia). Papers led by academic and non-academic scientists were
classified according to the professional discipline of their first author (e.
g. ecology) to acquire an overview of interested parties involved in MSP
research. The bibliographic records were screened by reviewing their
titles, abstract, as well as by reading the whole publication, in most of
the cases, to assess whether they reported on case studies. The
geographical distribution of the case studies in marine provinces [31]
was also examined. Furthermore, a classification was made based on the
methodological approach used to address MSP (i.e. review, qualitative,
quantitative and/or modelling).
The quantitative and/or modelling methods used were also exam­
ined to infer whether they were directly related to the MSP process or
they were used to provide data informing the process instead. For
instance, Goyert et al. [32] used zero-altered models to test if
plunge-diving seabird species would show positive associations with
marine mammals. The study is still relevant to the MSP process, as un­
derstanding the species’ heterogeneity and connectivity is fundamental
for a successful MSP process [33,34]. For this reason, the record
remained in the bibliographic database under the “quantitative and/or
modelling” section as per the method used (Table 1, Fig. 1). However, it
was not included in the section of MSP applications using quantitative
and/or modelling approaches, as the method did not directly describe
the MSP process. On the other hand, the open source GIS-based tool
created and used by Gimpel et al. [35] considers the spatial conflict of
six elements (i.e. aquaculture, tourism, renewable energy, fisheries,
maritime transportation, marine conservation) as well as indicators of
policy (i.e. stakeholders view) to produce detailed reports and graphics
considered key components of the planning process. Therefore, this re­
cord was classified both in the “quantitative and/or modelling” and the
“MSP application” categories (Table 1, Fig. 1). The records characterised
as MSP applications using quantitative and/or modelling methods were
further analysed with respect to the elements contained (e.g. MPAs,
fisheries, habitats and species) in each study. The purpose of this
Fig. 2. Distribution of cumulative publications on marine spatial planning during the period 2003–2019.
4
Marine Policy 127 (2021) 104329
analysis was to identify the inherent dynamics of MSP applications and
assess which human activities and conservation features usually drive
the MSP process.
3. Results
3.1. Rate and sources
The bibliometric database compiled (n = 1323 records) comprises
986 articles, 96 reviews, 123 books and book chapters, 96 conference
papers and 22 publications of other type (i.e. short survey, note, edito­
rial material, letter) according to the classification of both the WoS and
the Scopus databases.
The first MSP publication was issued in 2003. By 2006, when the first
international workshop on MSP was held, the number of cumulative
publications was eight, and increased to 21 by 2007. Research interest
on MSP began to grow substantially since 2011 when the number of
cumulative publications raised from 109 in 2010 to 167 in 2011, and
continued to increase sharply through 2015. The years 2010 and 2014
are considered landmark years regarding the evolution of MSP due to its
emergence as a policy framework (US Executive Order 13547 and 2014/
89/EU Directive respectively). The number of publications in the field of
MSP increased exponentially between 2003 and 2019 at about 44% per
year (y = 1.8e0.439x) (R2 = 0.94, P < 0.0001, Fig. 2). The almost 22%
and 21% increase in 2018 and 2019 cumulative publications compared
to the preceding year respectively, indicate that research on MSP con­
tinues to grow.
The top 19 journals reporting MSP research, each publishing > 1% of
the total number of publications in journals between 2003 and 2019
(n = 1147), captured about 53% of the journal articles in the data set
(Fig. 3), which suggests that the allocation of articles into journals is
highly skewed, as these 19 journals constitute only 6.74% of the total
amount of journals (n = 282) reporting MSP research. Indeed, 55% of
journals in the data set (n = 282) published a single MSP study during
the study period. The journal “Marine Policy” emerges from the analysis
as the undisputed leading journal on MSP publications, with almost 20%
of the content published in journals (n = 1147) (Fig. 3). “Marine Policy”
is focused on ocean policy studies and comprises analyses in the prin­
cipal social science disciplines relevant to the formulation of marine
policy [37]. The journal “Ocean and Coastal Management” ranked 2nd
in publishing content relevant to MSP, followed by “Frontiers in Marine
Science”, “ICES Journal of Marine Science” and “Plos One”. The annual
MSP publications in the top five journals showed fluctuations over time,
except for “Frontiers in Marine Science”, where publications related to
MSP have continuously and rapidly increased since it was launched in
2014 (Fig. 4).
V.I. Chalastani et al. Marine Policy 127 (2021) 104329

Table 2
Top 30 keywords ranked according to the total link strength.
Ranking Keyword Total link strength Occurrences

1 Marine spatial planning 8236 931

2 Marine environment 3736 331
3 Ecosystems 3451 272
4 Conservation 3305 269
5 Marine protected areas 2293 222
6 Human activity 2141 169
7 Atlantic ocean 1831 152
8 Coastal zone 1791 153
9 Marine policy 1786 182
10 Biodiversity 1765 148
11 Sustainability 1714 171
12 Coastal zone management 1711 164
13 Ecosystem-based management 1658 153
14 Fisheries 1517 127
15 Habitat 1515 124
16 Spatial analysis 1454 130
17 Stakeholders 1393 131
18 Decision making 1391 122
19 Animals 1386 85
20 United States 1238 101
21 Europe 1211 121
22 Planning 1172 104
23 GIS 1155 104
24 Fish 1137 92
25 Fisheries management 1134 111
26 Environmental planning 1096 83
27 Environmental management 1039 77
Fig. 3. Percentage of publications on marine spatial planning with respect to 28 United Kingdom 995 96
the total number of publications in journals (n = 1147) published by the 19 29 Offshore wind energy 980 96
journals including each > 1% of the marine spatial planning articles published 30 Integration 948 82
between 2003 and 2019. The classification was made according to the data
provided by both the ISI Web of Science and Scopus databases.
3.2. Keywords and citations

The co-occurrence of keywords, concerning 6120 individual key­

Fig. 4. Number of papers published per year in the top five journals with the
most publications in marine spatial planning for the period 2003–2019.
words in total, was analysed to identify contextual links among publi­
cations. Similar terms were merged to provide a clearer overview of the
dominant keywords (Table SM1). For instance, the keywords “marine
ecosystem”, “ecosystem” and “ecosystems” were all merged under the
term “ecosystems”. A total of 386 keywords occurred at least five times
and the 30 most abundant ones are shown in Table 2. The term “marine
spatial planning” was, as expected, the most searched term, followed by
“marine environment” as the 2nd most used term and “ecosystems”,
which ranked 3rd, while “conservation” and “marine protected areas”
constitute the 4th and 5th most used keywords respectively (Table 2).
The proximity of the nodes in the network of co-occurring keywords
(Fig. 5) indicates how these research topics are related to each other,
while the width of connecting lines represents the strength, as fre­
quency, of connection. The resulting network demonstrates that “marine
spatial planning” is closely related to “marine environment”, “human
activity”, “decision making”, “ecosystems” and “coastal zone”(Fig. 5B).
The network map represents eight clusters of keywords (Fig. 5A). The
largest cluster (Cluster 1 in Fig. 5A) describes the policy/management
dimension of MSP including the terms “governance”, “coastal zone
management”, “legislation” and “integration” whereas “Cluster 2”
(Fig. 5A) reflects the interaction of human activity and conservation
including multiple terms related to species (e.g. “animals”, “mammals”,
“birds”). The “Cluster 3” (Fig. 5A) refers to the spatial analysis of
biodiversity (e.g. habitat mapping), particularly for the coastal zone.
Another cluster (Cluster 4, Fig. 5A) outlines the research effort con­
ducted to allocate marine renewable energy, with a focus on offshore
wind energy, while accounting and/or reducing environmental impacts.
The “Cluster 5” (Fig. 5A) reflects the research effort related to fisheries
and their management by considering climate change while “Cluster 6”

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V.I. Chalastani et al. Marine Policy 127 (2021) 104329

Fig. 5. A. Network map of the 386 keywords co-occurence. B. Zoom of the network map of the 386 keywords co-occurence in the area close to the most searched
term “marine spatial planning”. The size of the nodes represents their “total link strength” indicating that these keywords occur frequently in the literature regarding
marine spatial planning. Lines are connecting the nodes with thickness based on “link strength” (i.e. the magnitude of their co-relation).

6
V.I. Chalastani et al. Marine Policy 127 (2021) 104329

(Fig. 5A) refers to the role of ecology in analysing ecosystem services.
The “Cluster 7” (Fig. 5A) demonstrates the zoning attempts in marine
protected areas, which constitute the dominant term of this cluster. The
prevalence of the term “australia” indicates the main location of these
attempts. Finally, the smallest cluster, (Cluster 8, Fig. 5A) represents the
research conducted in the Arctic Ocean in relation to exploitation
activities.
Seven out of the 10 most cited papers were published on “Marine
Policy”, the dominant journal on the MSP field (Fig. 3, Table 3). The
most cited papers address human impacts on the ocean and the role of
MSP in reconciling socio-economic uses of the marine space with
ecosystem management for sustainability (Table 3). In addition, the
terms “ecosystem”, “ecosystem services”, “ecological” and “marine
protected areas” are present in the titles of eight of the 10 most cited
publications for this period (i.e. except for the 4th and 6th most cited
MSP papers published between 2003 and 2009;Table 3).
3.3. The MSP research community
A total 6350 authors contributed to MSP publications during
2003–2019. The number of authors involved in relevant publications is
increasing in parallel to the number of publications throughout the 17-
years’ timeframe (50.4% year-1 increase, Fig. 6A), with a sharp increase
in 2010, when the number of authors involved in MSP publications rose
almost 3-fold compared to 2009. This increase was followed by a steady
growth rate until 2017 and another sharp increase in 2018, as the
number of authors was raised by 51% between 2017 and 2018. The
authors’ involvement for the years 2015–2019 constitutes 66% of the
total number of authors (n = 6350). Single-authored papers prevailed
during the first seven years of the assessment, while multi-authored (>5
authors) is the mode in papers published between 2015 and 2019 ac­
counting for 29.4% of the total number of studies conducted during this
period (n = 838), compared to 12.6% single-authored papers (Fig. 6B).

Table 3
The 10 most cited papers in marine spatial planning found both in ISI Web of
Science and Scopus. This analysis was carried out on references obtained from
both databases.

Ranking Times cited Reference

Scopus WoS

F. Douvere, The importance of marine spatial

1 608 542 planning in advancing ecosystem-based sea use
management, Mar. Policy 32(5) (2008) 762–771.
T. Agardy, G.N. di Sciara, P. Christie, Mind the gap:
Addressing the shortcomings of marine protected
2 357 341
areas through large scale marine spatial planning,
Mar. Policy 35(2) (2011) 226–232.
L. Crowder, E. Norse, Essential ecological insights for
3 330 307 marine ecosystem-based management and marine
spatial planning, Mar. Policy 32(5) (2008) 772–778.
R. Pomeroy, F. Douvere, The engagement of
4 311 288 stakeholders in the marine spatial planning process,
Mar. Policy 32(5) (2008) 816–822.
M.M. Foley, B.S. Halpern, F. Micheli, M.H. Armsby,
M.R. Caldwell, C.M. Crain, E. Prahler, N. Rohr, D.
Sivas, M.W. Beck, M.H. Carr, L.B. Crowder, J. Emmett
Duffy, S.D. Hacker, K.L. McLeod, S.R. Palumbi, C.H.
5 309 288
Peterson, H.M. Regan, M.H. Ruckelshaus, P.A.
Sandifer, R.S. Steneck, Guiding ecological principles
for marine spatial planning, Mar. Policy 34(5) (2010)
955–966.
F. Douvere, C.N. Ehler, New perspectives on sea use
management: Initial findings from European
6 272 246
experience with marine spatial planning, J. Environ.
Manage. 90(1) (2009) 77–88.
C. White, B.S. Halpern, C.V. Kappel, Ecosystem
service tradeoff analysis reveals the value of marine
7 244 224
spatial planning for multiple ocean uses, Proc. Natl.
Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 109(12) (2012) 4696–4701.
P.M. Gilliland, D. Laffoley, Key elements and steps in
8 199 195 the process of developing ecosystem-based marine
spatial planning, Mar. Policy 32(5) (2008) 787–796.
S.E. Lester, C. Costello, B.S. Halpern, S.D. Gaines, C.
White, J.A. Barth, Evaluating tradeoffs among
9 179 162
ecosystem services to inform marine spatial planning,
Mar. Policy 38 (2013) 80–89.
K.K. Arkema, G.M. Verutes, S.A. Wood, C. Clarke- Fig. 6. A. Cumulative distribution of all authors involved in publications on
Samuels, S. Rosado, M. Canto, A. Rosenthal, M. marine spatial planning every year during 2003–2019. B. Number of publica­
Ruckelshaus, G. Guannel, J. Toft, J. Faries, J.M. tions on marine spatial planning published during 2003–2019 grouped into six
10 174 159 Silver, R. Griffin, A.D. Guerry, Embedding ecosystem
classes according to the number of authors involved in each publication.
services in coastal planning leads to better outcomes
for people and nature, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.
112(24) (2015) 7390–7395.

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V.I. Chalastani et al. Marine Policy 127 (2021) 104329

Fig. 7. Geographical distribution of first authors based on their affiliation. In the case where one author had multiple affiliations the first one was chosen. In total, 61
countries were recorded from the 1323 bibliographic data. A. Map showing five groups formed according to the number of publications per country based on the first
author’s affiliation. The groups according to the number of publications are: i) 1–2, ii) 3–10, iii) 10–30, iv) 30–100 and v) > 100. No publications based on the first
author’s affiliation were identified for the countries in grey colour. B. The bar graph shows the percent of publications with respect to the total (n = 1323) for each
country, based on the first author’s affiliation. The graph includes only the countries with percentages > 1%. The figures in brackets at the bottom of the diagram
represent the ranking of each country according to its publishing effort in Ocean Science for the period 2010–2014 (sensu [38]).

The first authors leading MSP research were affiliated within 61
countries. About 39% of the authors (n = 1323) were affiliated with
institutions in the European Union (EU27), extending to 57% for Euro­
pean authors (i.e. EU, UK and Norway) (Fig. 7B). USA institutions, or­
ganisations or companies are represented by almost 20% of the leading
MSP authors (n = 1323). Within European countries, the ranking of
contributions to MSP departs from that of contribution to marine science
in general, with authors from Portugal leading more MSP papers than
authors from The Netherlands (Fig. 7B). Australia ranks 3rd on MSP
efforts, whereas China comprises only about 1.5% of all first authors
(n = 1323).
The multidimensional nature of MSP efforts requires the participa­
tion of diverse stakeholders, including academics, non-governmental
institutions, industry and government. A total of 981 first authors
contributed to MSP publications during 2003–2019. Academics (i.e.
authors affiliated with all types of universities and academic research
institutions) dominated (63%) the leading authors of MSP publications
(n = 981) (Fig. 8A). Non-academic research organisations led 16% of
the MSP publications (n = 981). Governmental institutions, such as
federal agencies (e.g. NOAA), as well as intergovernmental ones, such as
UNESCO, led 11% (n = 981) of MSP papers. Private industry holds a
higher fraction of MSP publications compared to non-profit organisa­
tions (i.e. 6% and 4%, respectively) (Fig. 8A). A closer look at the top
two field categories (i.e. academia and non-academic research organi­
sations) reveals that ecologists form the most abundant group of the first
authors (Fig. 8B), with a percent of almost 47% of the total (n = 778).
Social scientists comprise the second largest group (29%, n = 778).
Geographers/planners constitute 14% of the total (n = 778), while en­
gineers are the least represented with 10% of the total leading authors
on MSP publications (n = 778) (Fig. 8B).
In an effort to identify collaboration patterns on MSP, a co-
authorship network was created (Fig. 9), based on the number of pub­
lications researchers have jointly authored [28,29]. The co-authorship
analysis was restricted to articles with a maximum of 25 authors per
document and a minimum threshold of five documents per author. The
co-authorship network, showing the 50 best-connected authors,

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V.I. Chalastani et al. Marine Policy 127 (2021) 104329

Fig. 8. Professional profile of the first authors published on the marine spatial planning topic during 2003–2019 (n = 981) according to their latest affiliation. For
the first authors with multiple affiliations for the same publication, only their first affiliation was considered. A. Pie chart demonstrating the distribution of first
authors into professional fields: i) academia, ii) non-academic research organisations, iii) government, iv) private industry and v) non-profit organisations. B. Bar
graph indicating the percentages of researchers working only for academia and non-academic research organisations (n = 778) based on their research discipline: i)
social sciences, ii) engineering, iii) geography/planning and v) ecology.

Fig. 9. Co-authorship network map of authors based on total link strength. The minimum number of documents of an author was set to five while the maximum
number of authors per document was set to 25 documents. The map shows the 50 most well-connected authors.

9
V.I. Chalastani et al. Marine Policy 127 (2021) 104329

revealed seven clusters of co-authorship formed, primarily, by the
country of affiliation of authors (Fig. 9), but also depending on their
professional discipline. The most well-connected cluster (Cluster 4 in
Fig. 9) consists of authors based in Italy, working mostly in Italy’s Na­
tional Research Council [39]. Likewise, the largest cluster (Cluster 1,
Fig. 9) consists of authors affiliated in the USA. The authors included in
this group as well as the proximity of the cluster to the node referring to
C.N. Ehler [40], a scholar in marine governance, highlight the connec­
tion of policy and MSP through a social-ecological approach. Another
cluster (Cluster 6, Fig. 9) comprises the collective work conducted for
transboundary MSP in the Baltic Sea, by authors from Sweden, Germany
and Poland. The “Cluster 3” (Fig. 9) is formed by authors working on the
Portuguese marine spatial plan, with a particular focus on legal regime
and governance issues. The “Cluster 2” (Fig. 9) encompasses authors
mostly working on conservation, while the “Cluster 5” (Fig. 9) repre­
sents authors who have participated in the EU project “MESMA: Moni­
toring and evaluation of spatially managed marine areas” [41]. The
authors of this cluster are all working on ecosystem-based management.
However, they differ in terms of geography, working field and context.
In particular, authors primarily involved in fisheries management and
aquaculture in Germany share this cluster with authors from AZTI
Tecnalia [42] in Spain and others from academic institutions in Greece,
mostly rooted in geography/planning disciplines. Finally, the smallest
cluster (Cluster 7, Fig. 9) comprises authors from The Netherlands and
the UK.
3.4. Approach and sectors addressed
Studies using qualitative approaches are dominant in the MSP
literature, comprising about 56% of the total number of studies exam­
ined (n = 1323), extending to 63% of the bibliographic records when
reviews are included (Fig. 10A). On the other hand, 37% of the studies
(n = 1323) have indeed used either a quantitative approach (e.g.
multivariate analysis), or a modelling one (e.g. GIS-tools, Marxan,
Bayesian networks), or a combination of both. However, 78% of the
quantitative and modelling efforts (n = 489) in the MSP literature do
not support the MSP process itself (Fig. 10B), rather produce input to
support MSP. Only 22% of the publications using quantitative and/or
modelling approaches (n = 489) and 8% of the total number of publi­
cations examined (n = 1323) have developed MSP applications in a
quantitative and/or modelling manner.
Thirteen marine sectors, including the eight most typical ones [36]
were included in these quantitative and/or modelling MSP studies
(Table 3, Fig. 1, Fig. 10C): i) aquaculture, ii) desalination, iii) fisheries,
iv) marine cables, v) minerals and mining, vi) ports and shipping, vii)
tourism and coastal recreation, viii) renewable energy, as well as ix)
MPAs, x) habitats and species, xi) cultural heritage, xii) military activity
and xiii) policy and law. Among them, “fisheries” and “habitats and
species” were those most commonly included in MSP quantitative
and/or modelling studies, assessed in 63% and 56% of relevant studies
(n = 106), respectively. “Cultural heritage” and “desalination” were the
activities least addressed (7% and 4% respectively) in published MSP

Fig. 10. A. Percentages of publications on marine spatial planning between 2003 and 2019 with respect to the total number of studies (n = 1323) grouped according
to the methodological approach that they have used (Table 1): i) qualitative methods and reviews and ii) quantitative and/or modelling methods. B. Percentages of
publications between 2003 and 2019 with respect to the total number of studies which used quantitative and/or modelling approaches (n = 489) according to the
purpose they have been published for: i) to serve as an input for marine spatial planning and ii) to describe a marine spatial planning application. C. Chord diagram
showing the elements considered in publications on marine spatial planning between 2003 and 2019 which used quantitative and/or modelling approaches to
describe a marine spatial planning application (n = 106). The 13 elements hereto considered are: Fisheries; Habitats and species; Ports and shipping; Renewable
energy; Marine protected areas (MPAs); Tourism and coastal recreation; Aquaculture; Marine cables; Minerals and mining; Military activity; Policy and law; Cultural
heritage; Desalination. The width of the external curves represents the number of occurrences of each element in the relevant publications. The width of the internal
curves demonstrates their interaction.

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V.I. Chalastani et al. Marine Policy 127 (2021) 104329

exercises. Regarding the interaction between these elements in relevant most represented marine province outside Europe.
studies, the strongest interactions were met between “fisheries” and
“habitats and species”, “fisheries” and “ports and shipping”, “fisheries” 4. Discussion
and “renewable energy”, “renewable energy” and “habitats and species”
(Fig. 10C). These interactions are indicative of typical conflicts occur­ This bibliometric assessment demonstrates that MSP is a rapidly
ring in marine space. High levels of interaction also occurred between growing research programme. The results, however, do not depict the
“tourism and coastal recreation” and “ports and shipping”, “ports and entire MSP effort, as the results of MSP processes are not always reported
shipping” and “marine cables”, “renewable energy” and “ports and in scientific publications since they refer to politically-driven processes
shipping”, as well as “habitats and species” and “MPAs”. These in­ that can last more than 10 years [13].
teractions constitute positive synergies, as in most of the cases one is MSP publications grow approximately 11-fold faster than the general
prerequisite for the allocation of the other in marine space. growth of science and engineering publication (3.9% per year) [38]
revealing that MSP is a recent topic in scientific literature. MSP
commenced through management initiatives for the GBR [14] and
3.5. Study sites
rapidly expanded to involve MSP exercises in 66 countries within a
decade [12]. In particular, the EU MSP Directive [20] constitutes the
Most, 69%, of the MSP publications (n = 1323) report on case
main landmark in the evolution of the research field, leading to EU
studies distributed in 49 marine provinces (Fig. 11). About 9% of the
dominance in MSP applications that percolates throughout the analysis.
case-based studies (n = 911) have incorporated more than one marine
On the contrary, despite the fact that USA researchers lead research
provinces in their analysis. Most case studies are located in marine
contributions to ocean science as a whole [38] (Fig. 7B), they rank 2nd
provinces of the EU EEZs, particularly the Northern European Seas
in MSP publication effort, followed by Australia, mainly due to analyses
(n = 342), followed by the Mediterranean Sea (n = 118). The Lusitanian
in the GBR, which constitutes the first established example of MSP [43].
Sea and the Black Sea are addressed in 53 and 26 case studies, respec­
Surprisingly, China, is underrepresented in the field of MSP, despite
tively. The Cold Temperate Northwest Atlantic and the Cold Temperate
being 2nd in the publication effort on ocean science for the period
Northeast Pacific were addressed in 79 and 63 case studies, respectively.
2010–2014 [38] (Fig. 7B).
The marine provinces surrounding Australia are found in 43 case
Indeed, this assessment reveals that the majority of MSP case studies
studies, whereas India is almost absent from the database, and no case
have been conducted within the EU, as a result of the obligation of EU
study is available for the Arabian Gulf.
member states with EEZs to implement national marine spatial plans by
Case studies incorporating quantitative and/or modelling ap­
2021, as dictated by the 2014/89/EU Directive which has led to the
proaches to directly address MSP constitute only 11% of the total
formation of such plans (e.g. New Belgium Marine Spatial Plan, Ger­
number of case studies (n = 911). Case studies in EU EEZs are over­
many Spatial Plan for North Sea and Baltic Sea) [5]. In addition, the
represented among those using quantitative and/or modelling methods
completion of numerous European research projects targeting MSP or
for MSP applications (Fig. 11). In particular, the Mediterranean Sea
related fields (e.g. fisheries management) add to the number of Euro­
ranked 1st (17% with respect to the 118 total case studies in the Med­
pean case studies for MSP. More explicitly, regional EU-funded research
iterranean Sea) in the use of quantitative and/or modelling approaches
projects as the “BONUS BALTSPACE Project”, the “PartiSEApate Proj­
in support of MSP exercises, followed by the Northern European Seas
ect” and the “MASPNOSE Project - Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) in
(11% relative to n = 342 case studies in the Northern European Seas).
the North Sea” are examples of some of the EU international projects
The Cold Temperate Northwest Atlantic was ranked 3rd (almost 10%
using MSP [5]. In fact, all of the authors of the most well-connected
relative to the 79 total case studies in this marine province), being the

Fig. 11. Geographical distribution and related number of studies (in circles) per marine provinces (sensu [31]); numerators in the circles indicate the studies that
have used a quantitative and/or modelling approach to directly address the issue of marine spatial planning and denominators indicate the total number of studies on
marine spatial planning in each marine province.

11
V.I. Chalastani et al.
cluster of co-authorship (Cluster 4, Fig. 9) have participated in the EU
project “ADRIPLAN: Adriatic Ionian Maritime Spatial Planning” and
have published outputs derived from this project [44–48]. Similarly,
authors of “Cluster 7” (Fig. 9) have all participated in the MSP Chal­
lenge, an initiative which uses game technology and role-play to support
communication and learning for MSP [49] and was co-founded by EU.
USA case studies are less represented compared to those in the EU,
probably due to the fact that there is no MSP policy implementation at
the federal level. Despite the aim of the 2010 Ocean Policy of the USA to
form non-regulatory regional marine spatial plans for nine regions of the
EEZ of the USA, only two of them were completed and approved before
the bill was revoked. These are the Northeast Ocean Plan (EEZ and state
waters of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Con­
necticut, and Rhode Island) and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Ocean Action
Plan (EEZ and state waters of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia) [12]. However, regulatory marine
spatial plans have already been developed for state waters within three
nautical miles from shore [12,50], such as the Washington Marine
Spatial Plan and the Massachusetts Ocean Plan [5]. In Australia, the case
studies are focused on the management of the Great Barrier Reef
[51–53]. China ranks low on MSP case studies, with most of them per­
forming zoning of the marine space, which represents the operational
measure to regulate the use of the sea as an outcome of the planning
process [13,16]. The underrepresentation of entire marine provinces
such as the ones surrounding India and the countries of the Arabian
Peninsula is neither consistent with the geographical distribution of
inhabitants around the world [54] nor with the data supporting the
United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14 (UN SDG 14 or “life
below water”) [55] which characterise the Bay of Bengal as one of the
five large marine ecosystems most at risk from coastal eutrophication.
MSP mandates have not yet been established for any of the areas
considered by the Regional Organisation for the Conservation of the
Environment of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden (PERSGA; [56]), while one
recent study has been published for the Red Sea [4]. Particularly for the
case-based studies incorporating modelling approaches to address MSP
(n = 106), despite the prevalence of Europe and the USA, interesting
modelling approaches have been conducted elsewhere too (e.g.
Philippines, [57]; Belize, [58]).
The bibliographic patterns reported demonstrate a strong social-
ecological nexus in the MSP field which reflects the way in which MSP
is perceived and analysed, implying a focus on ecosystem-based MSP
that recognises the full array of interactions within an ecosystem,
including human uses, rather than being part of conventional sectoral
management and piecemeal governance [59]. The dominance of “Ma­
rine Policy” among the scientific journals publishing content relevant to
MSP and the role of “Ocean and Coastal Management”, as the 2nd
ranked journal publishing content relevant to MSP, reflect the primary
scope of MSP to plan the use of marine areas in order to foster sustain­
able ocean management and governance [12]. In the keywords
co-occurrence network (Fig. 5B), the magnitude of the keyword
“stakeholder”, its strong connection with the term “marine spatial
planning” and its close proximity to the term “sustainability” indicate
that MSP is a participatory process [60], aiming to sustainably use the
marine space. This requires the involvement of multiple actors and
stakeholders [11] and a continuous interaction of ecologists and social
scientists in conducting MSP research and plans.
The presence of the journals “Frontiers in Marine Science” and “ICES
Journal of Marine Science” among the top five journals publishing MSP
content (Fig. 3) reflects the strong ecosystem focus of the MSP process,
since they publish content mostly relevant to ecology, conservation, but
also management. Indeed, the ecosystem-based approach is highlighted
as an important underlying principle within maritime spatial planning
[61], or even as its prerequisite [62]. The term “ecosystem services” is
present in three of the 10 most cited papers (Table 3). The terms “marine
spatial planning” and “human activity” present stronger connections in
the keywords co-occurrence network (Fig. 5A) with the terms related to
12
Marine Policy 127 (2021) 104329
ecosystem services (e.g. “ecosystem services”, “fisheries”, “energy re­
sources”) compared to the ones of specific ecosystem components (e.g.
“animals”, “birds”) reflecting the focus on ecosystem services while
planning management interventions [63].
The presence of the term “integration” in close proximity to the
keyword “marine spatial planning” (Fig. 5B), but also the interconnec­
tion of the keyword clusters related to policy, human activity and con­
servation, biodiversity, fisheries and marine protected areas (Fig. 5B)
demonstrate the integrative nature [21] of MSP goals [64]. However,
even though the co-authorship clusters outline the ecosystem-policy
scheme as the main focus of MSP [65], they do not seem to be well
connected, which confirms the dominant ad hoc [10], or sectorial [11]
approaches to MSP.
Researchers stemming from disciplines more likely to conduct
technical applications, including GIS-tools (e.g. [35,66]), such as geo­
graphers/planners and engineers are underrepresented in the published
literature, which explains the fact that more than half of MSP studies are
qualitative, whereas, only 22% of the quantitative and/or modelling
studies (n = 489) are describing MSP applications. The output of these
assessments is relevant to stages IV and V involving the development
and evaluation of alternative management actions [5]. This finding re­
veals that MSP is still in its infancy, as most of the studies applying
quantitative methods or models are basically producing spatial data to
be used as input for subsequent MSP steps, such as habitat mapping (e.g.
[67]) or species distribution (e.g. [68]). Studies using models as Marxan
or Invest for planning are limited. Pinarbasi et al. [5] indicated that
GIS-based tools, add-ins, toolboxes and web-based applications were the
least represented among the tools found to be used in MSP research.
Nevertheless, the multiple aims and objectives of MSP call for different
competences, sciences and skills, including not just ecosystem func­
tioning and geospatial analytical aspects, but also planning and pro­
gramme management [69,70]. Therefore, DSTs and models based on
scenario formulation and analyses (e.g. [4]) seem to be an emerging,
thus promising MSP research area.
MSP integrates inputs across professional, physical, institutional, or
administrative boundaries [71]. However, this assessment demonstrates
that incorporating multiple human activities and conservation features
combined with active stakeholders’ involvement in quantitative and/or
modelling MSP approaches is a critical gap in MSP research. The ma­
jority of MSP studies usually consider one or two key activities in the
planning process, with the remaining ones included only as static spatial
information. The dynamic, in respect of space and time, allocation of
human activities according to the EBM principles, has not been explored
in relevant published assessments. Furthermore, apart from a few ex­
ceptions (e.g. [11,49,72]), most of the relevant studies do not actively
engage stakeholders through a process that allows for their real-time
interaction, which does generate barriers precluding the holistic view
embedded in the MSP notion [4]. Failure to engage relevant stake­
holders also fails to create the basis for the required transformation of
the management system [13] to combine multi-actor processes to ach­
ieve sustainability, develop innovation networks and foster experi­
mentation [73].
5. Conclusions
In this work, a detailed survey of publication effort on MSP was
performed to assess the current status of published content on MSP,
allowing the identification of publication patterns and future re­
quirements. A strong interaction of MSP with elements of ecosystems
and ecosystem services was identified, demonstrating the ecosystem-
based approach adopted by most MSP exercises. In addition, policy
and governance dimensions were found to be inherent to the MSP pro­
cess. This is reflected in research teams addressing the social-ecological
dimension in MSP research. However, despite the effort to aggregate
different disciplines to produce robust results for this interdisciplinary
research programme, research collaboration was identified to develop
V.I. Chalastani et al.
based on geographic proximity of authors, or even around the same
professional or research funding environments. The dominance of
qualitative MSP assessments reflects the early stage of the MSP research
programme, and calls for progress in the development of quantitative
tools and models in support of MSP. It was identified that barriers and
limitations towards transboundary MSP applications are also an
impediment, but need to be conducted in regional seas, such as the ones
undertaken in the Baltic Sea and the Adriatic Sea.
MSP was revealed to be a fast growing field, which however still
needs to mature into a quantitative research programme incorporating
the complexity of the sectors involved as well as the global reach of this
tool. Fostering this growth requires development of collaborative in­
ternational programmes, and a closer link with policy makers for uptake
of the MSP outcomes. Utilising the full potential of MSP will be funda­
mental to meet the UN SDG 14 “life below water” aspiring to a sus­
tainable ocean economy.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Vasiliki I. Chalastani: Methodology, Validation, Data curation,
Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – Original draft, Writing – Re­
view and Editing, Visualisation, Project administration. Harry Coccos­
sis: Writing – Review and Editing. Vasiliki K. Tsoukala: Methodology,
Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review and Editing. Carlos M.
Duarte: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Writing – Original draft,
Writing – Review and Editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition.
Declarations of Competing Interest
The authors have no competing interests to declare.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by funding allocated by King Abdullah
University of Science and Technology (KAUST) to Carlos M. Duarte.
Appendix A. Supporting information
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found in the
online version at doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2020.104329.
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