SEABAS

Strategic ecosystem-based planning for sustainable future of the Baltic Sea

Background

The Baltic Sea region faces severe transboundary challenges such as marine pollution, and degradation of biodiversity due to cumulative impacts on ecosystems. These challenges are exacerbated by climate change and the urgent need to expand renewable energy production in the area.

Maritime Spatial Planning is seen as a tool to manage human activities at sea to balance economic development and environmental pressures. The platform aims to improve the integration of Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEA) and Cumulative Impact Assessments (CIA) into Maritime Spatial Planning to enhance sustainable blue economy, address climate change impacts, and conserve biodiversity.

The main gap addressed is the lack of a harmonized regional framework for SEA and CIA in MSP. This includes gaps in methodology, data interoperability, stakeholder engagement, and aligning MSP with EU policies such as the EGD and Nature Restoration Law.

Objectives

The platform project supports stakeholders in the region by enhancing their capacity to align Maritime Spatial Planning with the principles of the blue economy, ensuring the sustainable use of marine resources, increasing climate change resilience and maintaining ecosystem health. It includes:

Strengthening SEA framework as a key element of ecosystem-based strategic planning gives target groups an instrumentation to support a sustainable blue economy, balancing economic growth with biodiversity conservation. It ensures that SEA is organized and carried out utilizing the best practices and that its results are fully integrated in the MSP process.
Developing the regional SEA framework for MSP provides target groups with a structured approach to assess and manage human activities at sea, addressing climate change resilience and enabling the development of crucial sectors of marine economy such as renewable energy and securing functionality of marine ecosystem.
Providing methodological recommendations for cumulative impact assessment, based on the best available scientific knowledge, enables authorities and scientists to understand and address the combined pressures on marine ecosystems, fostering sustainable economic activities that respect ecological limits.
Enhancing cross-border and cross-sectoral dialogue improves collaboration among blue economy stakeholders, ensuring inclusiveness and alignment with regional sustainability goals. Strengthened communication processes and knowledge sharing empower stakeholders with the tools and information they need to integrate ecological considerations into economic planning effectively.

The project helps to tackle the challenge of balancing blue economy development with the protection of marine biodiversity. It demonstrates that the developed Strategic Environmental Assessment framework is applicable for national Maritime Spatial Planning procedures, addresses Cumulative Impact Assessments in transboundary context, and ensures that planning and implementation of economic activities such as offshore wind farms include offsetting environmental impact.

Approach

SEABAS project platform aims to build on the outcomes of existing and previous projects to establish a regional framework for integrating Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) within Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) across the Baltic Sea region. More specifically, the project platform aims to strengthen the role of MSP in promoting sustainable blue economy and enhancing the management of human activities at sea, as a key element of ecosystem-based approach.

To address these challenges the SEABAS project platform will use guiding recommendations, methodologies and tools developed by several projects, such as eMSP, MSP4BIO, MSP-Green and PROTECT Baltic contribute policy briefs and guiding principles for ecosystem-based approach and policy coherence to build the SEA framework on, including integration of nature conservation measures.

BALTIC Lines, ReMAP, Marea and Baltic Sea2Land provide several decision support tools (Navigator, BASEMAPS, PlanWise4Blue) and methodologies for cumulative impact evaluation, ecosystem service mapping, data sharing and stakeholders’ engagement into MSP processes. These achievements provide a strong foundation to fulfill the platform’s objectives.

The platform synthesizes and validates outputs from past projects, enhances tools interoperability, and develops actionable SEA and CIA recommendations. Fostering transnational cooperation, it capitalizes on the past project findings, building new capacities, and aligning with regional and EU strategies, filling gaps not addressed previously. Integration of project outputs into the regional policy framework guarantees long-term sustainability.

Project partners & HELCOM’s role

HELCOM Secretariat is the lead partner of the project consortium. Project partners include:

University of Tartu
Baltic Environmental Forum Latvia
Gdynia Maritime University
Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences
Regional Council of Southwest Finland and Ministry of Smart Administration
Regional Development of Latvia
German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency of Germany
Coalition Clean Baltic

Associated partners are VASAB Secretariat, Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communication, Polish Ministry of Infrastructure and the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management.

Project funding

The project is co-funded by the European Union, Interreg Baltic Sea Region

Project duration

July 2025 – December 2027

Resources

SEABAS – Interreg Baltic Sea Region

Contact

Janica Borg

Project Manager, SEABAS
HELCOM Secretariat
janica.borg@helcom.fi
+358 44 9018303

Lotta Ruokanen

Deputy Executive Secretary, Professional Secretary
(WG Source to sea, HELCOM-VASAB MSP WG)
+358 40 505 0392

Florent Nicolas

Associate Professional Secretary
+358 40 668 3145