MARINE SPATIAL PLANNING: THEORETICAL ASPECTS

In this article, I consider marine spatial planning (MSP) as a complex of analyses, calculations, and evaluations aimed to prove feasibility of economic activities and contribute to their development in a certain part of a sea or an ocean. A most likely comprehensive MSP object is an integrated segment of coastal/marine area. Consisting of a marine part and a coastal area, such segments are a product of zoning. In this article, I explore the key MSP stages - from identifying the panning object to evaluating the natural resource potential and performing calculations for relevant aqua-territorial structures. The basic principles of the geographical division of marine geosystems are the following ones: identifying relatively integrated marine sectors and relatively integrated coastal sectors and connecting them into a single whole. A hierarchical approach is key to transboundary marine basins. I propose the following techniques: geographical zoning, identification of an area and basin-specific combinations of natural resources, geoinformation modelling, and forecast analysis for different activities and relevant spatial elements of aqua-territorial structures.