thesis blue economy

• Open access
• Published: 17 May 2021

Challenges of the Blue Economy: evidence and research trends

• Rosa María Martínez-Vázquez   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4875-754X 1 ,
• Juan Milán-García 1 &
• Jaime de Pablo Valenciano 1  

Environmental Sciences Europe volume  33 , Article number:  61 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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The Blue Economy is a recent field of study that encompasses economic activities that depend on the sea, often associated with other economic sectors, including tourism, maritime transport, energy and fishing. Blue growth supports the sustainable growth of the maritime and marine sectors as the oceans and seas are engines of the global economy and have great potential for growth and innovation. This article undertakes a bibliometric analysis in the terms of Blue Economy (BE), Maritime Economy (MAE), Ocean Economy (OE), Marine Economy (ME), and Blue Growth (BG) to analyze the scientific production of this field of study. Analysis of the authors’ definitions of BE, BG, ME and OE provides interesting relationships divided into sustainability and governance; economics and ecosystem protection; industrial development and localization; and the growth of the ocean economy, with development as the central axis that encompasses them. The main contribution is to find out if there is a link between the BE and the CE through the keyword study.

The results show a significant increase in articles and citations over the last decade. The articles address the importance of different sectors of BE and the interest of governments in promoting it for the development of their national economies. Using bibliometric mapping tools (VOSviewer), it is possible to find possible links between concepts such as CE and BE through the BG and to visualize trending topics for future research. Nascent and future research trends include terms such as small-scale fisheries, aquatic species, biofuel, growth of the coastal BE, internationalization and blue degrowth (BD), the latter approaches aspects of BG from a critical perspective.

Conclusions

In conclusion, it highlights the need for alliances between the sectors that compose BG with the incorporation of the CE in order to achieve a sustainable BE in both developed and developing countries. Through the keyword analysis it is shown that the BG strategy is the bridge between the BE and the CE. The CE presents itself as a promising alternative that could mitigate tensions between stakeholders who support both growth and degrowth positions.

Throughout history, the sea has always been present in the economic activities of all civilizations as a food resource, a means of transportation and commercial trade. In recent years the term Blue Economy (BE) has become a concept closely related to maritime resources and developed economies in the oceans. Its growing expansion and the emerging needs of a circular economy (CE) herald challenges in both new and established treatments and materials [ 30 ]. CE is understood as an economic model oriented towards the elimination of waste generated, efficient use of resources, recycling and recovery [ 79 , 117 ].

The BE aims to promote economic growth, improve life and social inclusion without compromising the oceans’ environmental sustainability and coastal areas since the sea’s resources are limited and their physical conditions have been harmed by human actions [ 40 ].

The first appearance of the term BE dates back to 2009, at the congress of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation of the United States. The importance of the BE for the USA’s overall economy, the excellent business opportunities it provides, and the concerns about climate change are excellent opportunities for new blue jobs in renewable energy [ 19 ]. In that same year, the International Symposium on Blue Economy Initiative for Green Growth in Korea took place, where “ the concept of using ocean resources in a way that respects the environment can evaluate how both business activity models and new technologies satisfy economic and environmental conditions, contributing to the sustainability of these resources ” [ 62 ].

Subsequently, Pauli [ 94 ], a leading proponent of the BE’s economic model, published a book entitled, “The Blue Economy” [ 7 , 16 , 45 , 110 ] which proposed it as a model based on technological innovation to supply products at low cost, promote local job creation and a model that is respectful of the environment and competitive in the markets.

At the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012, the oceans were deemed to be priority areas, with some initial objectives being proposed such as the “sustainable consumption and production patterns”, food security, sustainable energy for all and disaster risk reduction and resilience [ 124 ].

Undoubtedly, ocean resources generate numerous benefits to the world economy and offer essential opportunities for transportation, food production, energy, mineral extraction, biotechnology, human settlement in coastal areas, tourism and recreation, and scientific research [ 64 ].

In academic research, a literature review on the BE also needs to include similar concepts. Lee et al. [ 74 ] state that “ the term BE has been used in different ways and similar terms such as “ocean economy” or “marine economy” are used without clear definitions. ” At the same time, when analyzing other articles that address BE, it was observed that ocean economy (OE), marine economy (ME), and blue growth (BG) were also used as synonyms [ 64 , 121 ]. Table 1 shows some of the definitions of these terms.

Figure 1 presents an analysis of the similarities and differences of the above definitions, where each color of the circumference represents a concept (BE, BG, ME and OE) and within it the authors are positioned. The most interesting finding arises in the intersections, with the common element for BE and BG being the economy and the protection of marine ecosystems to ensure sustainability, ME and OE share industry development and location, in BE and ME we find governance and sustainability and finally BG and OE cooperate in the growth of the ocean-based economy. In relation to the differences, they are placed outside the quadrant, with aspects pointing to a social and complex system, a green and inclusive economy, as well as the existence of operational risks.

(Resource: own compilation)

Comparative analysis between authors’ definitions

The central point is ocean development promotion as a sign of progress and economic, political, social and cultural growth without losing the focus on sustainability.

It is important to highlight that the concept of BE gives rise to two conflicts of interest. On the one hand, those linked to economic growth and development, and on the other, those linked with safeguarding and protecting the ocean’s resources. Kathijotes [ 67 ] states that the objective of BE models is to transfer resources from scarcity to abundance and address the issues that cause environmental problems.

For this reason, it is necessary to propose solutions that take advantage of all available opportunities and analyze the threats to the OE. Lee et al. [ 74 ] link the BE and the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) and conclude that the objectives that are linked to the BE are: underwater life (14), land ecosystems (15); peace, justice, and stable institutions (16) and alliances to achieve the objectives (17). Linking BE with SDGs is challenging on the basis that the common element of both is in objective 14 [ 59 , 88 , 130 ]. In relation to hot spots, firstly, the starting point for achieving the SDGs is not homogeneous, with large differences between developed and developing countries [ 58 , 61 ] due to the economic, political, social, cultural and environmental context [ 51 ]. Secondly, there are areas of conflict mainly around divergent views on the legitimacy of different sectors as components of BE, in particular carbon-intensive industries such as oil and gas and the emerging deep-sea mining industry [ 131 ], as well as large fisheries versus those coastal areas where artisanal fisheries are in danger of extinction [ 109 ].

Furthermore, the increase in human activity, in the form of new or intensified uses, such as the generation of renewable marine energy, exert greater influence and cause conflicts between BE sectors [ 56 ].

In 2012 the European Union implemented its BG strategy and established subsectors within the field of the BE [ 41 , 96 ]. The BG Strategy breaks down the BE into five main sectors: Biotechnology, Renewable Energy, Coastal and Maritime Tourism, Aquaculture and Mineral Resources, and integrates other sectors such as fishing, transportation, offshore oil and gas extraction, and ship construction and repair.

Biotechnology presents excellent opportunities to produce natural products with possible applications in the food and pharmaceutical sectors [ 105 , 119 ]. It is a recent and developing sector that is part of the bioeconomy, the latter developing and using renewable biological resources from the land and sea. For example, the cultivation of seaweed is expected to provide sustainable biomass that facilitates the development of the marine bioeconomy through BG [ 43 ] and is considered an industrial benchmark for achieving a competitive, circular, and sustainable economy that is less dependent on fossil carbon [ 9 ].

Renewable wind energy from marine sources and the conversion of thermal energy from the ocean is increasingly present at the global ocean level [ 126 , 129 ]. Novel hybrid robust/stochastic approaches are used to participate in the electricity market, including renewable energy procurement through large consumer purchases that respond to the energy demands of wind turbines voyer (WT), photovoltaic systems (PV), bilateral contracts (BCs), and micro-turbines (MTs), and energy storage systems (ESS) [ 1 ]. Other strategies focus on the optimal programming of electrical energy consumption in multiple cooling systems [ 108 ] or models based on heat and energy centers [ 70 ].

Tourism has played a decisive role in developing many island economies, triggering other activities to obtain local economic returns. Similarly, aquaculture and fisheries have contributed to the economic development of certain regions without jeopardizing access to essential resources such as small-scale fisheries [ 15 , 39 , 109 ]. The exploitation and extraction of offshore oil and gas is a reality in many economies around the world wherein nations must weigh the economic benefits against the negative impact it may have on living marine resources [ 78 , 92 , 131 ].

Globally, shipping is the primary means of supplying raw materials, consumer goods, and energy, becoming a facilitator of world trade and contributing to economic growth and employment, both at sea and on land [ 81 ]. In addition, the shipbuilding industry provides real added value to numerous coastal communities [ 114 ].

Through bibliometric analysis, this study’s main objective is to explore the evolution of worldwide scientific production on BE between 1979 and 2020. The purpose is also to identify those concepts that are related to BE in order to subsequently carry out the study of keywords and establish future research trends.

Its main contribution is the assimilation of the BE into the CE since both are key to supporting BG and guaranteeing the sustainability of economic activities developed within the blue context. BE encompasses activities related to renewable energy use, waste management, climate change, fisheries and tourism, where the concept of economic circulation (based on recycling, extension, redistribution and manufacturing) can be integrated, moving from a linear economy to an economy that makes the most of waste through circular flow [ 60 , 112 , 133 ]. Analyzing the possible connections, we start from the study carried out by Ruiz-Real et al. [ 107 ], referring to the analysis of the global dynamics of the CE, where trend words related to renewable energy, climate change and waste management are located, finding an explicit link with almost all of the activities promoted by the BE shown in Fig. 2 . Furthermore, although there is no visible link on the fisheries and water issue in the BE and CE, it should be mentioned that fisheries depend on water, as their life cycle depends on this natural environment and both its conditions (quality, temperature, salinity) and its proper management influence the sustainability and conservation of marine species [ 36 , 106 ].

Analysis of relationships between BE and CE

An important aspect relates to the conflict between the interest groups of BD versus the economic development proposed by both the BE and the BG. Thus, the CE presents itself as a mediator between growth, economic development and employment while extending resource availability and reducing environmental and social pressures.

Methodology

Bibliometry offers useful results from the authors’ production in a field of research, trends, the most cited articles, and the concentration of documents in impact journals [ 63 ].

The first step was to select the terms through a prior review of those economies linked to the seas and oceans, with BE, BG, ME, and OE being the most representative terms.

The next step involved locating and extracting data on all the documents in the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection that contain the terms established in the search criteria in order to visualize the behavior of scientific production over time, providing high-quality data and a complete description that facilitates data processing and for the broad recognition it has obtained in the scientific community [ 89 , 98 ]. For this study, the WoS database was selected. This database is widely recognized for gathering reliable and multidisciplinary research, with studies recommending its use due to the high proportion of exclusive journals [ 83 ].

A similar search query was carried out on the Scopus database using the same criteria to guarantee the data’s completeness. The results were similar to those obtained from WoS [ 44 , 53 , 80 ].

The data was then processed to analyze the number of articles published per year, the number of citations, and their h-index. Bibliometric analysis, the study of the scientific activity of authors, has been used to prepare this article and has been used in various areas.

Figure 3 depicts the descriptive statistical analysis of the main variables: cites per article, total cites, h-index, year, and articles. The matrix indicates the correlation between them (the closer to 1, the stronger the correlation; if the values are closer to − 1, there is an inverse correlation between variables, while if there is a zero value, there is no correlation). In the present case, the articles variable is highly correlated with the total of citations, h-index, and years. In contrast, there is an inverse correlation with the variable cites per article and year.

Correlation matrix of main variables

In this work, the number of articles, citations, citations per article, and h-index, the most relevant countries, institutions, and authors are studied. The keywords are also taken into account in order to discover new lines of research. A database search has been carried out, filtering by topic in the title, the abstract, author keywords, and Keywords Plus. The search for the keywords was carried out using the terms: “blue economy” or “ocean economy” or “blue growth” or “maritime economy” or “marine economy.” In the next stage, 780 results were obtained, from which articles were filtered, leaving 499 articles to be processed and analyzed in the fourth stage. The results were then filtered to include only articles as many of them have been published in journals with an impact factor in Journal Citation Reports (JCR). This indicator is highly regarded and valued by organizations that evaluate research activity, guaranteeing a strict review process and high-quality results [ 32 , 47 , 82 ].

Lastly, once the document search was filtered to include only articles, the data were exported and processed using two tools: Vosviewer and Biblioshiny. In this way, clusters can be created by downloading information from the Web of Science database.

The VOSviewer program offers the basic functionality necessary to visualize bibliometric networks, citation links between publications, collaboration between researchers, and co-occurrence links between scientific terms [ 128 ]. According to a logical bibliometric workflow, the Bibliometrix tool, developed in the statistical and graphical language R, is also used to add weight to the study. R is highly extensible as it uses a functional, object-oriented programming language, and therefore it is relatively easy to automate parsing and create new functions. It is utilized to create graphs for three metrics at different levels: sources, authors, and documents, and analyzing knowledge structures at the conceptual, intellectual and social level [ 5 ] (Fig. 4 ).

(Source: own compilation based on WoS)

The data collection process

Descriptive analysis

Figure 5 represents a descriptive analysis of the terms ME, OE, BE, and BG, making a note of the chronological order of the articles when these concepts first appeared.

(Source: own compilation based on WoS data)

Timeline of first published articles related to BE, BG, ME, and OE

The first mention of ME appeared in 1979 in the article entitled “ Marine Economy of Poland 1945–1975 ”. It addressed the growth of two port complexes located on the Polish Baltic Sea coast, Gdansk-Gdynia and Szczecin-Swinoujscie, pointing to the important economic activities in the area such as the export of coal and coke, ships, minerals, cereals, gypsum, rolled steel products, wood, cement, and food. It also pointed to tourism development along the coastal regions that required environmental protection [ 75 ]. Later, in 1992, the article “ The Intercolonial Railway, Freight Rates and The Maritime Economy in Canada ” stated that this infrastructure was a crucial piece in the history of MAE development and a transport link between the maritime islands and the center from Canada [ 31 ].

In 2004 the article “ Employment and Wages for the U.S. Ocean and Coastal Economy ” was published on the subject of OE and performed a preliminary analysis of the United States’ coastal and ocean economy between 1990 and 2001 to prepare coherent national estimates of economic values, based on economic and other measures related to the coasts and the oceans [ 27 ].

The article “ The Future of Blue Economy: Lessons for European Union ” marked the beginning of research on BE and made some preliminary considerations about the growing convergence of economic, social, technical, and environmental factors that contributed to generating new opportunities in the world’s oceans. Furthermore, thanks to the cooperation between European ocean industries and government institutions, together with the training of various experts, they became the epicenter of applying the European BE at sea [ 64 ].

In 2013 the BG Strategy, “ Scenarios for Selected Maritime Economic Functions Union ,” appeared and examined the usages of the scenarios of the BG project. It aimed to develop the maritime dimension of the Europe 2020 strategy, with a 15-year horizon (2025–2030). In this regard, the scenarios were understood and developed in two ways: the micro-future scenarios and the general scenarios [ 136 ].

Scientific production analysis

Table 2 shows the evolution of scientific production in the period (2020–1979) by the number of articles, citations, citations per article (average), and the annual h-index.

In 2010, there was an increase in the number of articles and citations resulting from the article, “ The importance of estimating the contribution of the oceans to national economies ” by Kildow and McIlgorm [ 71 ]. The authors stated that the oceans were in trouble and experienced changes that could compromise life on both the sea and the land, affecting the economy and the environment.

The year 2018 stands out for the number of citations, reaching its maximum value of 531 (Fig. 6 ). The most cited article, “ Blue growth: savior or ocean grabbing? ” questions political proposals and places them within the framework of the broader debates on the neo-liberalization of nature [ 8 ]. Other authors with a high number of citations address BG, tracing its roots to the conceptualization of sustainable development under the title “ What is blue growth? The semantics of “Sustainable Development” of marine environments ” [ 37 ]. The authors further manifest the complexity of ocean systems, combined with data and capacity constraints, demanding a pragmatic management approach [ 17 ].

Evolution in the number of publications and citations

The most cited articles closely related to the terms “BE, BG, ME, and OE,” in addition to the authors, journal, date of publication, and total citations, are listed in Table 3 . Of note is the article by Silver et al. [ 118 ], with 89 citations, which addresses how BE became operational and how it was articulated in four factors: oceans as natural capital, good business, the integral part of the Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and small-scale fisheries livelihoods. The second-ranked article by Kildow and McIlgorm [ 71 ] addresses the importance of knowing the oceans so that governments can have proactive behaviors in response to the demands of the population and nature in coastal and ocean environments. The third-ranked article, “ BG: savior or ocean grabbing? ”, critically addresses the political proposals, which fail to envision the problems of the environment and climate change.

The remaining articles address the marine sector’s role in the national economy, the concept of BG in the marine environment, the integrated maritime policy, and platforms for harvesting marine renewable energy.

Figure 7 depicts the authors and their links to scientific journals and the most representative keywords. In this instance, Morrissey, McIlgorm, Van der Burg, Morato, Bennett, and Soma have published the greatest volume of articles in Marine Policy , the scientific journal with the highest impact and the greatest number of relevant keywords.

(Source: own compilation using biblioshiny)

Relationships between top authors, journals, and keywords

Analysis of keywords

The keywords used in the article titles and abstracts are then analyzed according to their relevance and co-occurrence to create a co-occurrence map of all the terms used in the 499 selected articles (Fig. 8 ), using Vosviewer software. The minimum number of occurrences of a selected term is set at 25. Of the 12,858 terms found, 133 met the threshold and were included in the final analysis. From these results, a relevance score was calculated. The title and abstract fields were used to extract data. To extract the highest number of terms from the publications, the labels of the structured abstracts and the copyright statements are included.

Trends in keywords used in title and abstract

An analysis of the results reveals that the most productive period, between 2016 and 2020, has produced the most relevant terms. The ten most relevant terms are linked to maritime spatial planning, China, ME, OE, economic development, efficiency, and coastal areas. The most current terms have to do with the marine industry and access. In this sense, due to the boom in emerging marine industries and the support of nation states for marine technology, many Chinese universities have added specialties related to marine technology [ 76 , 134 ]. This industry has become a significant growth engine for China’s economic development [ 77 ]. Access refers to the exploitation of marine resources, coastal and fishing resources, spatial access to coastal communities, and the rights and property related to marine governance [ 2 , 11 , 69 , 109 ].

An analysis of the keywords identifies the most used terms and the most current trends related to the new areas of the concepts studied. The trend analysis depicted in Fig. 9 uses a color scale that goes from blue to yellow and categorizes the terms used in this field of study from the least to the most innovative in the period studied. Trends linked to concepts such as small-scale fishing, degrowth, aquatic species, biofuel, growth of the coastal BE, and internationalization are observed. These recent trends arising from the BE address the need to connect human and industrial activities that obtain their inputs from the sea by creating cooperative alliances at an international level, promoting sectors such as fishing, tourism, and energy. In addition, BE favors environmental sustainability since it uses renewable energy.

Trend analysis based on WoS data

The growth of the coastal BE can be linked to the government of Taiwan [ 20 , 116 , 141 ], which proposes a growth program for the coastal BE at the national level to promote ocean-related industries based on sustainable development by integrating different theoretical frameworks, methodological approaches, modeling and management of ecosystem frameworks. In general, farming the sea is based on artificial technologies and it is argued that by developing marine fish farming, it is possible to contribute to the transformation of capture fisheries by integrating the concept of BE [ 24 ]. As for the term BD is understood as the need to address the dominance of the BG by seeking greater integration between society and the oceans [ 38 ]. This requires the withdrawal of specific activities currently in the hands of large corporations, ending the exploitation of localized production. It aims the decommodification of labor and the recovery of the common goods to protect diversity. It is therefore necessary to make visible the risks of strategies based on economic development by suggesting a rethinking of the BE [ 52 , 65 ]. In this sense, the decrease is intended to criticize the traditional ideas of growth and sustainability by promoting an equitable reduction in production and consumption, along with a socially transformative vision [ 22 ]. The role of biofuels in the BE is gaining momentum. The research of Kaşdoğan [ 66 ] examines algae-based biofuel production systems designed on the high seas and integrated with wastewater treatment and carbon dioxide absorption processes to revitalize faith in biofuels in the BE.

Past research has addressed aspects of OE and ME from the perspective of the economic activities derived from the sea, specifically food catches, commercial transport, and the maritime industry [ 10 , 68 ]. Subsequently, the sustainability approach within the MAE was included [ 140 ] along with the specific characteristics, the type of risk, and the uncertain areas of this economy [ 35 , 46 , 111 ] and the continued development of integrated marine policies [ 21 , 34 ].

Despite the tremendous potential of ensuring the oceans’ sustainability, the growth of the BE presents some challenges. One of the most obvious obstacles is the lack of common and agreed-upon goals of BG. For some, BG revolves around maximizing economic growth derived from marine and aquatic resources [ 14 , 57 ]. However, for others, it means maximizing “inclusive” economic growth derived from marine and aquatic resources [ 37 , 54 , 101 , 120 ]. A real example of inclusion is in the Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS), which, like many developing countries, the issues of oceans, climate change, and energy are essential to poverty eradication. It is impossible to suppress poverty unless the health of ocean ecosystems is guaranteed and preserved as they are essential for food security, livelihoods, and economic [ 6 ]. Following the sustainability approach, the CE is building a strong emphasis on becoming a model that brings significant social, economic and environmental benefits [ 26 ].

The concepts of the “BE” and “BG” have been grouped together in a conceptual framework and are used as political discourse throughout the world as a way of representing the possible contribution to human well-being that both aquatic and marine spaces can make. Different interpretations of the concept of the BE are recognized. It is the very diverse definitions that generate a certain imprecision that allows the BE to encompass divergent visions and ideologies [ 25 ].

Fernández-Macho et al. [ 42 ] express the need to promote the BE to foster the progress and growth of maritime sectors, which can and should be sustainable. In this context, the development of integrated maritime policies is based on the belief that maritime zones can achieve higher growth rates, pointing out that the European Atlantic Arc could contribute to this BG.

Most activities related to the economic exploitation of the maritime environment carried out by humans do not conform to the notions of a “BE” since this economic exploitation does not often focus on a sustainable maritime environment [ 104 ]. Conflicts between sectors can emerge due to the nature of the resource itself (as it is a limited resource), its use and the commitment to develop efficient management of ocean resources, for example tourism versus offshore hydrocarbon extraction [ 72 ] or even within the same sector, with differences between the fishing fleet, fish farms and small-scale artisanal fisheries. Therefore, it is important to generate synergies between the different sectors that make up the BE in order to contribute to the economic development of the area and achieve the SDGs together, this being a local challenge (bottom-up strategy). Decisions could influence the sustainable growth of the BE in highly contested regions because both companies and political authorities are influenced by economic interests and by stakeholders that have power in decision-making. This could result in sustainable growth having a stronger influence than the effects of climate change, making it a more flexible and adaptable approach to policymaking that considers changing economic, social, and environmental realities [ 56 ].

Coastal communities are directly affected by the BE and the effective management of ocean resources for BG. Although the term ocean economics is often promoted as something new, there are historical analogies that can provide insights for contemporary planning and implementation of BG [ 99 ]. In this sense, thanks to the use and treatment of raw materials of marine origin, such as macroalgae, their multiple uses are essential for the efficient recovery of marine biomass [ 100 ].

While the protection of marine areas is considered a fundamental part of mitigating climate change, on a practical level, its success is overshadowed by the current expansion of offshore drilling for oil and gas [ 15 ]. The prospects for growth in the OE are promising because ocean industries address issues such as food security, energy security, and climate change [ 139 ]. On the other hand, there are discrepancies regarding the legitimacy of the different sectors that make up the BE, specifically the industries with high carbon intensity and the emerging seabed mining industry [ 132 ]. Numerous authors warn of the danger of privatizing ocean spaces through the BE [ 13 , 15 , 109 , 132 ].

Due to the current transformation of the oceans as places of integral industrialization, it is necessary to reflect on the experiences obtained from fishing and fisheries policies to understand and intervene in modernization processes and practices [ 4 ].

Another aspect to consider is climate change. Due to the negative consequences for coastal populations caused by rising sea levels, it is vital to develop defensive infrastructures. Since the turn of the century, the loss of landmass in the Greenland ice sheet has been accelerating [ 127 ]. It is a topic of great interest for both scientific research and public policy as sea level rise is influenced by regional and local factors, with coastal areas suffering the consequences of sea-level rise [ 3 , 49 , 50 , 91 , 115 , 123 ].

Changes in the balance of surface mass, relative to changes in solid ice discharge, are vitally important across the Arctic areas and will continue in the future [ 84 ]. For example, the Netherlands, a region crisscrossed by large rivers such as the Rhine, Meuse, and Scheldt, is protected by a network of levees. Approximately 59% of its territory is at risk of flooding, 26% is under the sea level and 29% can flood if the rivers overflow. According to the commission that manages the Delta Plan, which addresses the threat of water, a temperature increase of two degrees in the North Sea could mean a rise of between 1 and 2 m.

Scientific studies about New York City reveal that the sea level could rise by 2 m by 2100, endangering the survival of Manhattan, a threat for which the city is already taking measures [ 90 ]. In Florida, the effects of climate change are likely to include flooding associated with rising sea levels, increased invasive species, damage to coral reefs, and increasing frequency of damaging hurricanes. Tide levels along the US eastern seaboard of the United States during the past century were spatially variable, with the relative sea level rising more rapidly along the Mid-Atlantic Bay than along the Bay of the South Atlantic and the Gulf of Maine [ 97 ]. Other authors [ 73 ] state that rising sea levels, tides, extreme weather conditions, high temperatures, and ocean acidification present serious problems that could affect shipping, shipbuilding, the fishing industry, and coastal tourism and even compromise human health and labor-intensive production activities, such as the sea salt industry, sea fishing and the use of seawater.

In our view, there is a need to encourage international cooperation with countries with a lower HDI in aspects related to the BE, CE and BG through the transfer of knowledge, skills, experiences and technologies that will contribute to achieving the SDGs, bringing significant benefits to both the community and the environment.

The BE presents significant challenges at an economic, social, and environmental level, which is why the BG strategy is presented as the key piece of the puzzle to guarantee environmental sustainability and efficient management of the seas and oceans’ resources. In this context, the SDGs imply that economic development is both inclusive and respectful of the environment, and it is necessary to find a balance between economic, social and environmental spaces. For example, one cannot consider eradicating poverty without guaranteeing the health of ocean ecosystems that are fundamental to food security, livelihoods, and economic development. Therefore, it is urgent to set goals with objectives and indicators that demand productive, healthy, and resilient oceans.

As analyzed, BE is a recent term rooted in sustainable development, so it needs more time for it to be adopted by all economic agents, politicians, and society in general. Thanks to the BG Strategy, it is possible to continue with economic activities arising from the seas and oceans in a more sustainable way that reduces the direct and indirect effects of its execution and minimize the negative impact on the ecosystem.

Regarding scientific production related to these concepts, there is a noticeable growing trend in the number of articles published in journals with high impact factors, especially in the last decade, which is evidence of a growing interest in investigating these terms and this novel field. Although in practice, the BE has always been present in the economic activity and the political agenda of all the countries of the world.

Analysis of keyword trends shows the need to protect coastal areas and traditional activities against the marine industry. These include the urgent transformation of large farms, waste treatment, and a commitment to cleaner energy that respects maritime ecosystems. The oceans are recognized as being essential to sustaining life on Earth, and the overexploitation of their resources jeopardizes their ability to continue to provide food, economic benefits, and environmental services to society. Another critical issue is the role that community ecotourism plays within the dynamics of the BE since marine and coastal tourism constitutes one of the largest and fastest-growing segments of tourism. There are sustainability problems related to the marine tourism sector, especially in protected areas, which could be reduced if the BG strategy is further promoted.

The main conclusion of this research is that BE poses some fundamental conflicts of interest. On the one hand, some studies support growth and development, while others prioritize the protection of ocean resources. Thus, it is essential to harness resources and promoting renewable energies with the resources offered by the oceans and seas, create alliances with different stakeholders, unite efforts, and find common elements to continue with the BG, taking into account each community’s problems and constituting a significant global challenge.

One of the limitations of this study is the difficulty in measuring the impacts of economic activity and therefore quantifying the environmental impacts. Therefore, it would be interesting to carry out studies that can provide solid arguments to support it [ 85 , 122 ].

Possible future lines of research on the BE could focus on incorporating this model of the CE since few articles have addressed this aspect jointly. The relationship between BE and CE should go beyond addressing the issue of global marine waste, renewable energy and climate change but rather be an integrated part of the BG strategy, the circular BG strategy in a broader sense: new components and more respectful treatments, less polluting marine minerals, sustainable management and the equitable distribution of marine resources. Regarding the political agenda, there should be specific lines of financing that support research into the CE and sectors of the BE. Together, the two must be integrated to achieve more efficient and sustainable results.

New researchers, experts, public institutions, and private companies who wish to understand the roots of the BE and its evolution over time may find this article useful to design and develop strategies that lead to its efficient management, preservation, and sustainability.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on request.

Abbreviations

Bilateral contracts

• Blue Economy

Blue degrowth

• Blue growth

Circular economy

Energy storage systems

Human Development Index

• Maritime economy
• Marine economy

Micro-turbines

• Ocean economy

Photovoltaic systems

Sustainable development goals

Wind turbines

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Martínez-Vázquez, R.M., Milán-García, J. & de Pablo Valenciano, J. Challenges of the Blue Economy: evidence and research trends. Environ Sci Eur 33 , 61 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-021-00502-1

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What is the Blue Economy? A spatialised governmentality perspective

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The Blue Economy is a recent economic development paradigm, being promoted worldwide as a way to deliver sustainable ocean development in the context of the sustainable development goals. Research has drawn attention to its contested nature and the propensity of sectoral interests to co-opt it to their own ends. An emerging body of critical studies of the Blue Economy, as practiced, provides an opportunity to address the question “What is the blue economy?” in new ways. This review of published empirical case studies initiates a conversation between governmentality concepts and place-space–time theory, aiming to open new lines of enquiry regarding the influence of spatiality on the nature of governance. This approach has allowed the elucidation of a complex and nuanced understanding of the Blue Economy, complementing earlier discourse and content analyses. In relation to Blue Economy governance, I pose the specific question, “Does place matter?”, leading to an interrogation of material and spatial relations in Blue Economy governance. I describe a complex spatialised governmentality, dominated by growth-based imaginaries and market-led practices. I draw attention to the production of ocean space through socio-material Blue Economy relations and the material and spatial contingency of its governance. Finally, I draw a distinction between “place” and “location” which has important consequences for Blue Economy governance.

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Regulating oceanic imaginaries: the legal construction of space, identities, relations and epistemological hierarchies within marine spatial planning.

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The advent of the Rio + 20 conference in 2012 stimulated a rapid convergence of interests around the concept of the Blue Economy (BE). This linking of ocean governance and economic development arose from a growing concern regarding the status of the ocean’s resources and their management and the search for a suitable conceptual framing as the basis for a new push for sustainable ocean policy (Silver et al. 2015 ) at a time of rapid international policy development (Sustainable Development Goals—SDGs, small-scale and rights-based fisheries policies, and various high seas enclosures for conservation, seabed mining, etc.).

Voyer et al. ( 2018 ) trace the origins of BE to the Bruntland Report ( 1987 ) as a manifestation of sustainable development thinking in which the environment is exploited for societal needs but protected at the same time. Similar to the “green economy” it emphasises market-based instruments to address environmental threats (Arsel and Büscher 2012 ; Castree 2010a , b ; Corson et al. 2013 ). The BE paradigm presents the ocean through competing discourses—as a space for wealth creation in response to continued world poverty and inequality, and as a threatened and vulnerable ecosystem in need of protection in response to profound changes resulting from climate change, pollution, over-fishing, and habitat destruction. BE conceptions have reframed the oceans in the manner of a land-based resource assemblage, Footnote 1 rather than an inhospitable realm to be explored and feared. As such it can be managed and developed, allocated as property, opened to markets, and governed (Winder and Le Heron 2017 ). The Blue Economy is subject to an emerging body of scholarship (e.g. Categorisations : Eikeset et al. 2018 ; Voyer et al. 2018 ; Winder and Le Heron 2017 ; Kathijotes 2013 . Regional examples : Patil et al. 2016 , 2018 . Potentials : Potgieter  2018 ; Pauly 2018 ; Sakhuja 2015 ). Bennett ( 2018 ) draws attention to concerns regarding social justice and inclusion in the development of the oceans and highlights ten consequent risks for the ocean economy (Bennett et al. 2021 ): (1) dispossession, displacement, and ocean grabbing; (2) environmental justice concerns from pollution and waste; (3) environmental degradation and reduction of ecosystem services; (4) livelihood impacts for small-scale fishers; (5) lost access to marine resources needed for food security and wellbeing; (6) inequitable distribution of economic benefits; (7) social and cultural impacts; (8) marginalization of women; (9) human and Indigenous rights abuses; and (10) exclusion from governance. For Campling and Colás ( 2018 ), the oceans are a space of “terraqueous territoriality” in which socio-natural power relations effected through capitalism actively shape the spaces of the ocean.

In this paper, I utilise the concept of governmentalities as an epistemological framework for BE research, alongside the theory of space-times and development, in an attempt to lay the foundation for a more spatialised perspective on BE governance. That is, a perspective more attuned to the unique material qualities of the oceans, the complex ecological processes and fluidity of the sea and life within it, and the consequences of place-based human–environment relations. The inadequacies of the terrestrially derived concept of “territory” as a unit of ocean management have been pointed out (e.g. Steinberg and Peters 2015 ; Campling and Colás  2018 ; Peters 2020 ), various authors juxtaposing bounded ocean territories (such as Exclusive Economic Zones, or EEZs) to which management is applied with the extensive and fluid marine ecological systems which they intersect, one having little relation to the other.

Whilst we might think of the BE as representing a particular governmentality (or a rationality of government), how is this governmentality manifested in materially and ecologically different places, for example a port versus the open ocean? This raises the important question of how is governmentality translated into action, and does “place” matter? This is a particularly timely question as the oceans are being rapidly territorialised, often in the name of the BE, through the implementation of marine spatial planning (Boucquey et al.  2016 ) and the creation of large zones in the open oceans—for nature conservation or extractive activities, for example.

In the following sections, I review published research on the BE paradigm, from critical geographies scholarship, before introducing the conceptual frameworks I use in this review to glean new insights into the spatiality of ocean governance. The “ Methods ” section presents the approach I take to this review and the selection criteria for selection of cases, and is followed by a narrative based on my analysis. Finally, I discuss the findings in relation to the research questions, and draw some conclusions.

The Blue Economy—a contested paradigm

Whilst much effort has been expended by international actors (e.g. World Bank, UNEP, WWF) to develop and promote BE policy, there remain contested aspects amongst multiple economic and political actors. Indeed, who is an actor itself remains contested as the legitimacy of certain sectors (e.g. carbon-intensive industries like oil and gas, and the emerging industry of deep seabed mining) to be considered a component of the BE is questioned by some, especially communities and NGOs that reject growth-based values (Voyer and van Leeuwen 2019 ). Inevitably, whilst the BE remains conceptually fluid, different interests seek to frame the BE to suit their priorities and worldviews. At Rio + 20, Silver et al. ( 2015 ) identified competing discourses prioritising “natural capital”, “good business”, and “livelihoods” framings. Voyer et al. ( 2018 ) later add an innovation framing, encompassing the co-occurrence of sub-themes relating to investment, innovative financing, and private sector involvement in Blue Growth strategies. This serves to illustrate the continuing evolution of the BE paradigm, reflecting Silver et al.’s ( 2015 :153) observation that opportunity remains to “further adopt or subvert the term in ways that advance diverse objectives, progressive politics, and governance practices”. Nevertheless, should we not be able to explain what characterises the Blue Economy as a development paradigm? Recent scholarship presents a significant number of empirical case studies, mostly from a critical perspective, that may provide sufficient evidence for that question to be answered.

Amongst that body of scholarship, a growing “degrowth” discourse presents a range of alternatives to dominant capitalist, growth-based societies (e.g. Hadjimichael 2018 ; Ertor and Hadjimichael 2020 ; Kerschner et al. 2018 ; Weiss and Cattaneo 2017 ; Cosme et al. 2017 ). Degrowth theorists and practitioners support an extension of human instead of market relations, demand a deepening of democracy, a defence of ecosystems, and a more equal distribution of wealth (Schnieder et al. 2010 ). Less radical are calls to reshape capitalism recognising local social and environmental diversity and needs (Fullerton  2015 ), and to privilege diverse, parallel economies (Gibson-Graham 2014 ). A recent special section on BE degrowth in the Journal Sustainability Science provides much material for analysis (see Ertor and Hadjimichael 2020 ). In the main, this body of work is grounded in Marxist theory and political ecology, foregrounding social injustice embedded in capitalist economies. Other research deploys content analysis (e.g. Voyer et al. 2018 ), and assemblage thinking (e.g. Winder and Le Heron 2017 ), but very little scholarship to date approaches the BE from a governmentality perspective (but see Choi 2017 ). This gap should be urgently addressed as governmentality has the potential to provide insights both into the emergent character of the BE and to inform how policies should be formulated and enacted in the future. Furthermore, as the ocean is spatially and materially heterogeneous, the influence of these factors on the efficacy and therefore mode of governance demands attention. In the next section, I set out the conceptual frameworks I use to explore these issues.

Conceptual frameworks

In this review, I use two analytical lenses: the concept of governmentality and theory regarding place-space-times (both of which are introduced in the next section). In doing so, I aim to generate new insights into emerging practices of BE governance and how these are mediated by spatial and material relations.

The concept of governmentality , the process of governance as distinct from the institution of Government , was introduced by Michel Foucault ( 1991 , 2008 ). Foucault’s major contribution was to recognise that modern rule was exercised through the deployment of tactics and the construction of knowledge rather than the imposition of law. Thus, governing is enacted through the construction of certain truths and their circulation via normalising and disciplining discourses and practices that enrol society in the act of governing (Foucault, 1991 ). Governmentality has been widely applied, and critiques focus more on research practice than fundamentals (e.g. McKee 2009 ; Rutherford 2007 ). In the context of environmental governance then, the governmentality perspective gets to the heart of power. As Rutherford ( 2007 , p295) puts it, “ways in which the environment is constructed as in crisis, how knowledge about it is formed, and who then is authorized to save it become important for understanding the ways that the truth about the environment is made, and how that truth is governed”. Studies of modern government through the lens of governmentality have revealed that governance as a manifestation of power takes place in multiple sites, through different discourses, and often outside the traditional boundaries of the state (Dean 2009 , Allen 2004 ; Murdoch 2006 ; Rutherford 2007 ; Ettlinger 2011 ). A growing body of literature attends to the concept of “green governmentality” and multiple governmentalities in environmental governance (see Fletcher and Cortes-Vazquez 2020 ) but the Blue Economy is yet to feature. There have, however, been a few studies of the BE as discourse (as noted earlier), discourse being an important element of the operationalisation of governmentalities.

For Foucault, discourses are an important manifestation of power and it is through discourses that governance is enacted. They shape how we know the world and thus also constrain how we act in it. Foucaultian discourses are more than a “worldview” (i.e. being representational; Hook 2001 ); they are contextually contingent, both historically and socio-materially. In legitimating how we act (Winkel 2012 ), they are closely imbricated in the “conduct of conduct” (Foucault 1991 ), and therefore of governance and governmentalities. Spatial imaginaries are regarded as representational discourses of spaces and places, but have more recently also been recognised as performative (Watkins 2015 ) and so more in tune with a Foucaultian conception of discourse. Both discourses and imaginaries, therefore, are fundamental to the operationalisation of governmentalities. That is, they shape how problems of government, such as sustainable ocean management, are rationalised, what and whose knowledges are used in that rationalisation, what practices are therefore proposed, and what relations result. Multiple discourses and imaginaries signify the possibility of political struggle. Using governmentalities as an analytic of government is helpful in shining a light on relations of power and knowledge and what governmental practices result , so providing a much richer account than discourse analysis on its own.

Whilst governmentality is recognised as having spatial dimensions (Murdoch 2006 ), these have been related more to scale (centre and periphery; governing at a distance) than to the governance of “ place ”. Indeed, it is hard to find reference to place in the governmentality literature (but see Balke et al. 2018 and Lee and Herborn 2003 which both concern urban infrastructures). Rutherford ( 2007 , p303) makes the important point, to the context of this study, that “power is enacted somewhere – not just as a metaphor but as a spatial reality. Power works through institutions, governments, corporations and bodies that are material and particularly located.” Power is a constituative act of inclusion and exclusion (Torfing 2009 ), and so is central to the nature of these relations. In the introduction I ask, does place matter in relation to how governmentality is manifested in the BE paradigm? To answer this challenge necessitates further development of the spatial dimensions of governmentality to include an understanding of space and place, and the related concept of time.

The concept of space-times is common to mathematics, physics, and geography and has its roots in Greek philosophy (Malpas 2012 ). Whilst each discipline has its own analytical and descriptive approaches, they share fundamental concepts and principles. In geography, space is considered to be an open and extended condition which is defined by the ordering of things in relation to each other (Massey 2005 ). Time is an ongoing sequence of events out of which things come into being. Thus, a space–time is an ordering of things following emergent trajectories, and is therefore contingent of historical events and spatial relations. Massey ( 2005 ) stressed the existence of a multiplicity of space-times for this reason. Drawing on Escobar’s critique of the hegemonic western development perspective (of “developed” countries being “ahead”, and “undeveloped” countries being “behind”) she used space–time theory to argue for more acknowledgement of alternative development futures. Malpas ( 2012 ) sought to bring place more fully into consideration, echoing Rutherford’s ( 2007 ) emphasis on place as a site of governance. Malpas sees place, rather than an open and extended condition, as a bounded space–time . Malpas considers place, space, and time as inextricably linked, through the concepts of boundedness , openness , and emergence . Reviewing the origins of the concepts of place, space, and time, he argues that a shift has occurred in geographical theory to the idea of space being infinite extension and that boundaries are considered incidental (Massey 2005 ) or non-existent (Thrift 2006 ). Malpas makes the case instead that boundedness is fundamental to relational geography. In a philosophical sense, boundedness presupposes difference, and difference presupposes relationality. Furthermore, it is boundedness that “establishes a certain oriented locatedness”. Thus, in Malpas’ view, boundedness can be thought of as the possibility of orientation and location, or establishing a “here” and a “there” and so differentiating place.

I use these concepts as analytical frameworks in the following ways:

Governmentalities

According to Dean ( 2009 . p31), an analytics of government “examines the conditions under which regimes of practices come into being, are maintained and are transformed……These regimes …. include, moreover, the different ways in which these institutional practices can be thought, made into objects of knowledge, and made subject to problematizations.” Thus, Dean’s framework, in its simplest form, has three components:

Problematisation of current practices of government , i.e. how is the problem in need of governance framed and the favoured solution rationalised?

Creation of a utopian vision , i.e. how is the objective or outcome of government articulated to the population

Operationalisation of regimes of government , i.e. how is the vision to be achieved, through what practices and institutions of control?

Thus, a Foucaultian analytics of government aims to identify its constituent elements and relations and how they are assembled and stabilised as organisational and institutional practice. It considers the knowledges on which the regime is based or which legitimise it, and how these knowledges might be challenged. It examines the technologies and mechanisms through which practices operate, achieve their goals, and effect governance.

Place-space-times

Malpas’ ( 2012 ) argument that place is a bounded space-time rests on the characteristic of space being extension, or openness . Extension is “a making room for” but also “an enclosing around”. Thus, space is open but also bounded. Being open creates “space” for appearance, for coming into being, or emergence . This emergence Malpas claims is the origin of time, reflected in movement, becoming, events, etc. Being bounded recognises difference and therefore relationality and creates the possibility of location. Thus, we can equate boundedness broadly with place, openness with space, and emergence with time, although this is to overly simplify their inextricable relationships and interdependencies. This ontology enables us to analyse the constellations of social and material relations (the topologies and topographies of space of Deleuze, Massey, etc., see Murdoch  2006 ) that result from governance of ocean space. In particular, this analytic enables insights into the very character of place (its boundedness), its potentialities or risks in response to governance (openness, or open space), and what are the outcomes (emergence) of practices of governance.

In the next section, I describe how cases were selected for this review, and outline the analytical process. In the “ Results ” section, I present differing perspectives of the Blue Economy, from both governmentality and place-space-times perspectives, in the form of two complementary narratives based on analysis of the selected cases. In the discussion, I address my central question of “does place matter?”, developing new insights into the spatialised governmentality of the BE.

This is a review article, using sources published in peer-reviewed journals and aiming to understand the state of knowledge regarding the Blue Economy, through the lens of spatialised governmentality, as understood from empirical case studies. I address the research question “how is BE governmentality manifested in materially and ecologically different places?” and the related question “does ‘place’ matter?” in the context of how BE governmentality is put into practice.

Literature search

To select articles for analysis, primary and secondary search terms and strings (Table 1 , A and B) were compiled. Blue Economy and a variety of derivatives (blue growth, blue finance, blue carbon, etc.) formed the primary terms. Secondary terms are drawn from the critical geographies literature, selected inductively on the basis of the initial literature review (not the reviewed papers) and the author’s knowledge of critical geographies literature, and grouped in categories chosen to represent the scope of scholarship on this and similar topics. The use of critical geography terms as selection criteria flows from the governmentality analytic lens and consequent interest in social and environmental justice and the important role of power relations and materiality in governance.

In assembling search terms, we are actively framing knowledge, and hence this must be done reflexively. My aim was to develop a simple descriptive framework of the Blue Economy domain which can be further developed as the domain evolves.

There is much related literature on ocean economy, ocean materiality, its social construction, etc. However, this is not framed as Blue Economy scholarship and therefore is not included in this review.

Searches were run on Scopus, Web of Science, and ProQuest databases in April/May 2020. Searches were restricted to articles published in peer-reviewed journals, in the English language. A total of 635 articles were secured. Initial review showed that many made only perfunctory reference to the BE, claiming a relevance but engaging another topic, such as marine spatial planning or aquaculture. Only articles which meaningfully engaged with BE as a concept were selected for analysis, numbering 231. Still a large number and very diverse in scope, a further filter was applied using relational terms from the critical geographies literature (Table 1 , C). Articles containing any of these terms were included, totalling 28. Of these, 17 were empirical cases (Table 2 ), which were analysed for this review.

Texts were coded using NVivo v12 for iOS, using a high-level framework of 6 codes representing the governmentality and place-space-times analytic frameworks, thus: problematisation; utopias; regimes of practices/boundedness; openness; emergence. The coded data was then organised into mind maps in abbreviated form, grouped inductively into themes, then narrative summaries produced (see “ Results ” section). These were then analysed inductively for common governmentality and spatial themes, which form the basis for the discussion.

Coding the content of the selected papers according to the six analytic categories of the conceptual frameworks (Governmentality: problematisation, presentation of utopias, regimes of practices; place-space-times: boundedness, openness, emergence) produced a minimum of 74 and up to 225 coded sections of text per category, generating rich data sets.

The intention in this analysis is to identify the full scope of each respective dimension of analysis (rather than, for example, making comparison between the reviewed papers). Coded instances of the 6 dimensions of analysis were transferred to a mind-map format to enable grouping of related “types”. This enabled categorisation of the various governmental and spatial elements present in the reviewed papers. In effect, this approach attempts to reinterpret the results of these papers and their interpretations by their authors, in a spatialised governmentality framing. The discussion in this paper focusses on what can be learned from this collective analysis of diverse empirical cases.

This coded content is presented as two narratives, one for each analytical perspective. In most cases, both discourses and counter-discourses are described, but only as far as these are developed in the data sources.

Governmentality perspective

Problematisation of current practices of government (Fig.  1 )

Mind map depicting thematic structure of “Problematisation” node following textual analysis. This provided the basis for the narrative description of results (see the Appendix Figs. 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 and 12 for the full version of mind maps)

BE is characterised by divergent problematisations of government, created by different stakeholders. Problematisation refers to the ways in which the need for government is framed, and to the knowledges used to underpin that framing and to rationalise the proposed solution. In the papers analysed, these elements of problematisation were commonly bound up in the imaginaries reported by the respective authors, in which the predominant characterisations or imaginaries of the oceans as BE spaces to be governed are: oceans as an ecological system (Aschenbrenner and Winder 2019 ; Kaşdoğan 2020 ); an ocean-based economentality (Nogué‑Algueró, 2020 ); oceans as territory (Aschenbrenner and Winder 2019 ; Kyvelou and Ierapetritis 2019 ); oceans as a site demanding social justice (e.g. Said and MacMillan 2020 ; Childs 2020 ; Ertör‑Akyazi 2020 ).

As an ecological system , the oceans attract divergent perspectives of their role in a Blue Economy. These range from oceans as economically productive ecologies (Kaşdoğan 2020 ), sometimes quantified or monetised as natural capital (Satizábal et al. 2020 ), to the ocean as a dynamic, living, material, relational, unbounded domain (e.g. Aschenbrenner and Winder 2019 ) embodying not only traditional, natural resource-based livelihoods, but also indigenous spiritual “one-world” cosmologies (e.g. Childs 2020 ) very different from more commercially driven BE perspectives. This is in contrast to an “ economentality ” (Nogué‑Algueró 2020 ) in which oceans are seen as spaces to be governed for economic gain. Dominant, powerful (mainly commercial and governmental interests) characterise the oceans as an economic frontier, a resource space to be enclosed to aid exploitation, in similar terms to the “green economy”. “Blue Growth” becomes the overall goal of governance and oceans may be valued in units of GDP (Choi 2017 ). State territories become a myriad of “institutional investment projects” (Winder and Le Heron 2017 ) promoting high growth sectors such as the bio-economy. Economism, prioritisation through an economic calculus, is promoted through technoscientific discourses (Kaşdoğan 2020 ). BE features strongly as territory to be governed , reflecting the creation of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) as “sovereign territory” (actually sovereign rights ; Carver, 2020) which created the possibility of State control and to which the BE is a response. Territorial governance features spatial zones of resource distribution (Aschenbrenner and Winder 2019 ) or functional uses, enclosure as property, and multi-use potentials (Kyvelou and Ierapetritis 2019 ).

A hegemonic growth discourse is widely evident, post-political in nature and dominated by economic interests, framing the oceans as a resource space and frontier for international investment, combined with the new opportunities for state control afforded by the creation of EEZs. Thus, BE is seen as a “governmental project” (Choi 2017 ) - the sea is problematised as a space of conflicting and fragmented uses in need of management. New governable spaces are opened up and new ways of governing rationalised, the oceans perceived as “underdeveloped frontier spaces through which infinite possibilities of “better” uses are imagined, institutionalized, and invested”. Such rationales have led to the favouring of industrial fisheries over artisanal and small-scale fisheries (Said and MacMillan 2020 ), and the institutionalisation of the sea as a development space leading to more intensive and extractive uses (e.g. Choi 2017 ; Nogué‑Algueró 2020 ), spatially dispersed according to natural features (e.g. “Estuaries with deep water channels, an uncommon topographic feature with the capacity for accommodating containerships, are developed as industrial container ports” Choi 2017 :39). The State’s role is to optimise resource use and in doing so is acting “responsibly” on behalf of citizens, as highlighted by Childs ( 2020 :118): “As the former Minister for Mining who oversaw the granting of the lease, Byron Chan, stated, the ‘PNG government is committed to ensuring that our mineral wealth is harnessed in the most optimal and responsible way’”. Nevertheless, many instances of conflict are detailed in which this hegemonic growth discourse is in conflict with ecological limits (“..a sustainability narrative, in which the idea of fishing within ecological limits is present within government policy, public discourse, and practices, is, however, in contradiction with the realities of accumulation and growth that prevail…” Andriamahefazafy et al. 2020 :75), is poorly in tune with the materiality of the oceans (“..the discourses of Blue Bioeconomy and Blue Growth and their underlying ideologies combine to create a landscape with expanding production facilities and expanding infrastructure, powered and fuelled through increasing resource extraction and use. Rather than leading to a reduction in energy and material throughput, these ideologies are maintaining and forging new resource-intensive dependency paths for Faroese society.” Bogadóttir 2020 :112) or at odds with traditional imaginaries and so creating social in justice. Concerns regarding appropriation of resources from traditional users by State and corporate interests lead to calls for social justice, for fairness, and for equity (e.g. Said and MacMillan 2020 ).

In summary, the principle rationality of government for Blue Economy development that is apparent in the papers reviewed is a need for economic growth, based on the natural wealth of the oceans and rationalisation of activities through State control.

Invention of utopias to be pursued (Fig.  2 )

Mind map depicting thematic structure of “Creation of utopias” node following textual analysis. This provided the basis for the narrative description of results (see the Appendix 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 and 12 for the full version of mind maps)

In Dean’s framework, utopias represent the belief that government can be effective and achieve desired goals. How are these beliefs and goals presented to governed subjects? Again, imaginaries and discourses (as with Problematisations) are powerful vehicles for enrolling support for particular approaches or courses of action towards specific aims. The BE is suffused with conflicting imaginaries—economic, sovereign, and community imaginaries featuring strongly—which are underpinned by divergent understandings of sustainability.

The economic imaginary , not surprisingly for the BE, appears as pre-eminent. Blue Growth is its overarching discourse, although there is also recognition that economic development should deliver environmental conservation within the BE paradigm. Blue Growth attempts to re-frame economy as economic practices that reflect ecological conditions and harbours a number of discourses. The BE is seen as a container full of unexploited wealth (Kaşdoğan 2020 ). It targets under-utilised resources (e.g. Blue Bio-economy), but exhibits little recognition of biophysical limits to growth and thus leads to ecological distribution conflicts (Bogadóttir 2020 ). Techno-spatial growth imaginaries promise sustainable production through environmental remediation, but may create licence for continued waste production (Kaşdoğan 2020 ).

The Sovereign imaginary revolves around the creation and control of territory. UNCLOS allows the creation of new marine territory (EEZs), codified in law, and representing new economic frontiers. However, such frontier and development imaginaries are often misconceived (modelled on landed imaginaries) and at odds with material and spatial reality, leading to failed utopias. In Namibia, Carver ( 2019 ) highlights the struggles between traditional fishing and emergent mining interests as the State seeks to exert its sovereignty over its maritime domain, ostensibly for the benefit of all Namibians. Sovereign imaginaries are also less than they seem, due to the influence of non-State actors, such as Development Finance Institutions and private corporations, for example, able to deploy resources to gain influence and control (e.g. Karnad and St Martin, 2019; Aschenbrenner and Winder 2019 ) not only of agendas but of space itself.

Community imaginaries are often driven by sustainable use of resources, resist the economisation of life, and recognise community wellbeing above economic efficiency. They embody more equitable wealth distribution, promoting “re-grabbing” for parallel, diverse economies (Said and MacMillan 2020 ) and communal allocation and management of resources with equitable market access. The lack of such imaginaries leads to decline in small-scale fisheries and other traditional sectors brought on by commodification and industrialisation. Community imaginaries should resist the tropes of economy, and recognise “the pluralities of conception, multiple uses, and differentiated value bases and their accompanying knowledges and practices at work in marine areas” (Winder and le Heron 2017 :18).

Regimes of practices (Fig.  3 )

Mind map depicting thematic structure of “Regimes of practices” node following textual analysis. This provided the basis for the narrative description of results (see the Appendix Figs. 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 and 12 for the full version of mind maps)

Utopian visions and the pursuit of open potentials of the BE result in the imposition of regimes of practices as the ultimate manifestation of particular rationalities of government. In the cases analysed, we see diverse regimes of practices deployed to operationalise the BE. The role of the State is central, though not universal. Technological and market practices exist alongside national licencing systems and marine spatial planning practices.

National licencing systems control access to resources and so operationalise the governance regime. Licences and permits govern use of marine space (e.g. fish farms in the Faroes. Bogadóttir 2020 ) and aim to optimise spatial use and sustainability, usually supported by assessment methodologies (EIA, Livelihood Impact Assessment, etc. Winder and Le Heron 2017 ). Access agreements may give rights to third country parties (Andriamahefazafy and Kull 2019 ) generating resource rents for the state (Carver 2019 ). Differing jurisdictions will use different controls and practices, which may be historically contingent. These regimes are often fragmented (Carver 2019 ), being designed ad hoc in response to individual needs. International frameworks and standards can superimpose global (Western) practices over State systems (e.g. Karnad and St Martin, 2020), which are distant from local politics and give rise to alternative (Non-State) dispute resolution mechanisms (e.g. International Finance Corporation standards for project implementation impose rigorous evidence requirements which marginalise local knowledge and effectively exclude local resource users). Colonial practices of exploitation can be perpetuated through adoption of historically contingent practices (e.g. mining in Namibia: “While the state has been positioned as an “abstract landlord” of the now independent Namibian territory, there remain substantive similarities between colonial and contemporaneous relations regarding issues of “sovereignty, territory and mineral resources””, Carver 2019 :396).

Marine spatial planning (MSP) is a relatively new regime of practices for spatial plan making and resource allocation through licences and permits, which is promoted as an essential planning process for the BE. MSP aims to balance economic development with ecosystem health through an assemblage of practices, data layers, legal rulings, and so on (Karnad and St Martin, 2020). However, it has been critiqued as a post-political process (e.g. Aschenbrenner and Winder 2019 ), foreclosing debate through various practices employed which reflect predetermined objectives, and is not the neutral apparatus it may be claimed to be.

Technological practices can support sustainability (e.g. improve product quality) but also lead to overexploitation of resources. This is exacerbated by access to capital which enables the introduction of new technologies and greater production (e.g. fishing in Malta. Said and MacMillan 2020 ). Practices of mineral extraction are spatially and materially dependent, seabed resources being determined by fluid, dynamic processes of sedimentation or volcanic activity for example (Carver 2019 ). Their accessibility is dependent on new technologies for seabed mining and new governmental practices for their regulation.

Market-led practices are enabled by the State, through the establishment of institutions to support the economisation of nature—valuing natural capital, blueprinting new business models, creating new financial instruments (e.g. blue bonds), etc. (Satizábal et al. 2020 ). Rights-based management is fundamental to market-led systems, aiming to incentivise long-term stewardship of resources. Introduction of individual transferable fisheries quotas (ITQs) in fisheries alters power relations, leading to inter-communal conflicts and shifts from owner operators to capitalised corporate ownership with little tie to local traditions or labour norms (e.g. Malta. Said and MacMillan 2020 ), invoking calls for the creation of parallel economies that offer protection to community traditions and livelihoods. Some market mechanisms can be deployed to incentivise conservation, such as labelling and traceability of products to bring consumer pressure to bear on managers and operators, or conditional financing specifying the creation of MPAs (e.g. Schutter and Hicks 2019 ).

Spatiality perspective

Boundedness (Fig.  4 )

Mind map depicting thematic structure of “Boundedness” node following textual analysis. This provided the basis for the narrative description of results (see the Appendix Figs. 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 and 12 for the full version of mind maps)

The concept of boundedness captures the difference between things—to be bounded is to be different. This manifests in many material and social relations, for example open oceans versus inshore waters, development zones versus marine protected areas, collectives of offshore wind turbines versus shoals of tuna.

As an analytical lens, boundedness emphasises material and spatial relations and their co-production through social relations. Ocean space is produced through a coming together of many factors in unique constellations of relations. Analysed cases emphasised the geophysical nature of the sea (e.g. Carver 2019 ), its three-dimensional quality and fluidity, the mobility or fixity of resources, and material flows (e.g. Nogué‑Algueró 2020 ; Bogadóttir 2020 ) as fundamental in shaping space. These factors affect methods of appropriation of resources by the State or private actors, and the materialised forms of the BE in the contexts of infrastructure, projects, and territories. Competition for space between users, technologies for resource extraction, and relations between marine and terrestrial resources and activities have both spatial and relational effects to produce space. Economic relations also play a role in co-producing space—financial instruments and investment of capital creating pressures, trends, and opportunities leading to change. Economic restructuring of fishing fleets for example produces different effects on the seabed or fish stocks (e.g. Said and MacMillan 2020 ), altering the nature of ocean spaces.

State control is effected through laws and operational institutions (Ministries, Agencies) applying to bounded jurisdictions, which may be operationalised as spatial zones or sectoral (e.g. shipping, mining) regimes of control. These typically apply to types of resources and specify types of uses and apply certain rationalities of control. Typically, such jurisdictions are multiple in marine space, especially in coastal areas where marine and terrestrial jurisdictions overlap and in territorial waters (12 nautical mile zone, as distinct from 200 mile EEZ) where sovereign powers exist. Discourses and practices create new management entities (Satizábal et al. 2020 ):

Territorialisation encloses and controls spaces.

Discourses perform a strategic (re)ordering, regulation, and control over resources, assigning meanings, values, and actions upon others.

Complex marine spaces are rendered into legible, manageable, and bounded systems enabling economic opportunities.

Each territory materially reflects financial flows, property rights, and other boundary demarcations.

Thus, new territories are established, such as MPAs or mineral concessions, with associated market opportunities (e.g. ecotourism in Malta. Said and MacMillan 2020 ; phosphorus mining in Namibia. Carver 2019 ). New abstract entities are produced to develop new markets for non-extractive goods such as carbon credits, and resources which cannot be economically valued and enclosed may be excluded or overlooked (Satizábal et al. 2020 :215). Thus, “The Philippine blue economy only denotes elements that are economically valued and can be managed through territorial enclosures.” Jurisdictions produce rights which both constrain and create opportunity. Rights are mostly bounded by relation to jurisdictions or use zones (e.g. Aschenbrenner and Winder 2019 ; Bogadóttir 2020 ; Satizábal et al. 2020 ), the creation of which contributes to the configuration of oceans as development frontiers. Property and licences for use generate rents and direct revenues from extraction (fish, minerals, etc.) and potential for political conflict (e.g. Namibian mining concessions. Carver 2019 ). Powerful interests (with access to capital) seek to influence policy agendas regarding the creation and nature of investable spaces (e.g. Aschenbrenner and Winder 2019 ).

Introduction of new socio-technical devices and processes (e.g. grid-based locational technologies—GPS and digital mapping) creates new ways to exert power over space through deployment of knowledge . They influence how ocean resources and space are known, allocated, and utilised. They enable the bounding of territory at sea and the allocation of property in ways not before possible. For example, in Indian waters, practices of environmental impact assessment for internationally supported oil exploration created zones of inclusion/exclusion based on types of data (published scientific assessments) that were highly restricted by institutional standards, thereby excluding traditional knowledges (Karnad and St Martin, 2020 ). Such spatial zones (e.g. arising from MSP-like processes) can obscure a lack of data and yet present an appearance of complete knowledge, legitimating policies based on scant evidence. Counter movements, in response to State and corporate-led resource mapping and enclosure, aim to re-present traditional knowledge to influence governance—an engagement in ontological politics. Traditional governance mechanisms deploy different rationalities and measures regarding spatial understanding and bounding of territory, adapting to the fluidity of the oceans and limits on its knowability through rudimentary technologies (e.g. Childs 2020 ).

Sites of resistance are evident, and to be expected given competition for uses and the imposition of new regimes and the changes they bring about. The less powerful are often marginalised coastal dwellers, and traditional industries which are not capitalised and driven by a growth ethic: new regimes may replace traditional rights to the commons (e.g. Said and MacMillan 2020 ) (including harbours and waterfronts: Nogué‑Algueró 2020 ; Bogadóttir 2020 ), and thus affect the exploitation patterns of resources and their whole spatial context. Dispossession of territorial or resource rights gives impetus to the formation of international alliances of resistance (small-scale fishers versus industrial fishing. Ertör-Akyazi 2020 ), challenges to dominant imaginaries (and calls to decolonise them. Childs 2020 ), and to alternative strategies (for resource redistribution or “re-grabbing”, and “communitisation” instead of privatisation; Said and MacMillan 2020 ) which strengthen capacities and legitimise (and protect) other (non-capitalist) forms of governance. Fundamental conflicts exist with indigenous spiritual imaginaries, or cosmologies in which life, in all its forms, is rationalised by a logic that is incommensurable with new economic frontier imaginaries. These imaginaries challenge the ontological singularity of the BE (Childs 2020 ) and its characterisation of the ocean as divisible and enclosable space.

Openness (Fig.  5 )

Mind map depicting thematic structure of “Openness” node following textual analysis. This provided the basis for the narrative description of results (see the Appendix Figs. 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 and 12 for the full version of mind maps)

Openness foregrounds potentials and their realisation, and the creation of new economic frontiers for the BE. However, potentials also engender struggles over rights of access and the creation of new sites and spaces for political contestation.

BE is a spatial intervention that rearranges people and resources to avoid waste and achieve their economic use (Choi 2017 ), for example by codification of the maritime domain to create investment potential. In such ways, new economic frontiers of opportunity are created. Such codification is accompanied by growth discourses, for example of untapped wilderness, or BE as underdeveloped frontier spaces (e.g. Childs and Hicks 2019 ) through which infinite possibilities of “better” uses are imagined, institutionalised, and invested. BE is necessarily a governmental project through spatial interventions, opening up new “governable spaces” and rationalising particular ways of governing (Choi 2017 ).

But all this potential comes with risks . Livelihoods of coastal dwellers are often overlooked (e.g. Satizábal et al. 2020 ), closing or constraining potentials, and technocratic planning mechanisms often marginalise those without the capacities to engage (e.g. Aschenbrenner and Winder 2019 ). Growth can lead to “ilth” (a term coined as the counterpoint to wealth—Nogué-Algueró, 2020 ), reducing employment (resulting from technological advance), grabbing land for infrastructure, and pollution (e.g. from shipping) (Nogué‑Algueró  2020 ). Struggles over rights of access to resources are the result of unequal power relations, such as access to capital providing access to technologies of extraction. Other new technologies such as GIS create new sites of struggle. Third country concessions (e.g. fishing access agreements, mining rights) are often perceived as unfair and leading to appropriation of wealth offshore (Andriamahefazafy et al 2020 ). State-driven priorities of rent-seeking (e.g. tax revenues) are not always seen as serving the interests of the public (Carver 2019 ), being at odds with livelihood-driven socio-cultural imaginaries and discourses of historical, colonial, over-exploitation. Resulting environmental justice struggles stress fundamental human rights (access to resources), and “conviviality” (rights of non-humans to exist/co-exist) (Childs 2020 ).

These tensions open diverse new spaces of political contestation : challenging the principles of development (e.g. “slow violence”; alternative cosmologies. Childs 2020 ) and “making the space–time configurations of new politics and possibilities” (Winder and Le Heron 2017 :21); reclaiming coastal and ocean spaces for food security (e.g. Ertör‑Akyazi 2020 ) and cultural heritage (e.g. Said and MacMillan 2020 ); making bio-economic relations differently (Kaşdoğan 2020 ); imagining sustainability “otherwise”, challenging growth-centred norms; breaking out of the bounds of economism and rethinking more-than-human relations beyond utilitarian logic (Kaşdoğan 2020 ); recognising that sites where neoliberalization of (marine) natures exist are also sites of intervention and divergence (Karnad and St Martin 2020 ); de-growth transition opening opportunities for the rehabilitative appropriation of previously destructive technologies (Nogué‑Algueró 2020 ); re-grabbing resources as commons (e.g. waterfronts, Nogué‑Algueró 2020 ; fish quota shares, Said and MacMillan 2020 ); and identifying labour chokepoints as leverage in political struggle regarding environmental access (e.g. Childs 2020 ; Nogué‑Algueró 2020 ).

Emergence (Fig.  6 )

Mind map depicting thematic structure of “Emergence” node following textual analysis. This provided the basis for the narrative description of results (see the Appendix Figs. 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 and 12 for the full version of mind maps)

Emergence encompasses those things and effects arising from the implementation of regimes of practices, from efforts to realise potentialities, or from struggles over what political choices should be made over them.

The reviewed articles demonstrate that BE development leads to growth-driven exploitation , with unequal rewards. A BE governmentality limits livelihoods of traditional resource users by constraining rights to resources and encouraging new uses to proliferate in the same areas (small-scale fisheries versus tourism activities such as diving. Said and MacMillan 2020 ). Capitalisation of industries tends in practice towards labour efficiencies rather than additional jobs, and land grabs for infrastructure. For example, port systems become part of a globalised logistics system assemblage, increasingly de-linked from local economies (to which benefit formerly accrued) creating new forms of enclosure and marginalisation (e.g. Nogué-Algueró  2020 ). In this way, local infrastructures and territories can become enrolled in geopolitical projects, such as China’s belt and road initiative, corporate supply chains, or multinational logistics corporations.

Outcomes are materially and spatially dependent , and often contested through emerging sites of struggle. For example, mobility of fish resources shapes the technologies and practices deployed in fisheries, such as the use of FADs (fish attracting devices) in tuna fisheries (Andriamahefazafy et al. 2020 ); territorial limits (e.g. EEZs) can incentivise a race to harvest migratory fish stocks before they leave territories to maximise State returns (Andriamahefazafy et al. 2020 ); spatial clustering of developments leads to demarcation and ranking of areas to be managed differently (e.g. Kyvelou and Ierapetritis 2019 ); needs for shore-based or seabed infrastructure, such as ports and processing facilities, or pipelines are materially driven and have material and spatial consequences (e.g. dispossession of waterfront commons for private economic activity. Nogué-Algueró  2020 ).

Imposition of regulatory measures occurs as part of a reconfiguring of governance, including moves from management planning to investment planning (Satizabal et al. 2020 ), anticipating use of business investment projects to address management failings, governance becoming a PPP (public–private partnership). A shift to technocratic processes such as MSP, away from politicised debate, limits opportunity for political protest. Technocratic measures can be enrolled by powerful actors to territorialise the oceans to their own ends. They reformat how objects are understood and understood relative to each other, they make objects visible/invisible, leading to marine economies and communities being reformatted by practices, protocols, data initiatives, and technical devices (Karnad and St Martin 2020 ).

Regulatory practices generate perceptions of unfairness and illegitimacy as they inevitably favour one actor over another, and so lead to sites of resistance . This especially applies to Fishing Access Agreements, having implications for employment and labour mobility, food security, supply/value chains, and ultimately to opposition to industrial fisheries (Andriamahefazafy 2020 ), but also mining concessions which may lead to one sector being favoured over another (e.g. mining v fishing, Namibia. Carver 2019 ). Legal mechanisms can lead to fragmentation of territory, between different regimes or through multiple seabed concessions for example (Carver 2019 ). By contrast, traditional systems of regulation, relying on social norms, may be more attuned to their natural environment, such as the mobility of fish resources and the consequent need for constant (re)negotiation between users over informal territorial rights (e.g. Karnad and St Martin; Ertör-Akyazi 2020 ).

New practices, enabled by new regulatory regimes, such as high input aquaculture systems, can have profound impacts on sustainability , externalising ecological feedbacks and appropriating ocean space (Bogadóttir 2020 ). Traditional infrastructures such as harbours can become appropriated by industrial uses, through privatisation and/or construction of specialist infrastructure, both restricting access and causing nuisance and pollution to traditional users (e.g. Nogué-Algueró  2020 ).

So new conflicts and new sites of resistance emerge. Conflicts between the old and the new, such as fishing versus mining, spatial conflicts (in 3 dimensions) of difficult-to-separate activities, a favouring of some sectors over others, and political struggles over legitimacy and appropriation of rights.

In this analysis, I consider what role the material and spatial elements of the oceans play in BE governance through a spatialised analysis of governmentality, aiming to understand how BE governmentality is manifested in materially and ecologically different places. Given that management practices are “located” (Rutherford 2007 ), I pose the question “does ‘place’ matter?” That is, does the heterogeneous materiality and spatiality of oceans, commonly experienced as difference between places (or locales), either demand different practices of government or, conversely, mediate the degree to which governance relations produce and shape the spaces of the Blue Economy?

The conceptual frameworks, together, allow us to peer deeply into the Blue Economy, seeing it as a rationality for the governance of the oceans and as a consequent constellation of social and material relations that create different places. We can see how the BE is a space of multiple potentials, and of political struggle over how these are prioritised and packaged as visions and goals, especially regarding the relative priorities between environment and economy. We can examine what practices are deployed (strategies, policies, technologies, devices, social norms) in the pursuit of those goals, and what emerges as a result: how place and space is shaped by them, what conducts are encouraged and reinforced, what identities come into being or are destroyed, and what inequalities and struggles may or may not result. We see, in effect, how the BE as enacted shapes the present and the future of the world’s oceans and the societies connected with them.

The image of the BE brought to the fore by this analysis of empirical cases is one of contested regimes of control and multiple (competing) imaginaries, or utopias. At the same time, it is a space of potential (Openness). How the conflicts between imaginaries and regimes of control and practice are resolved opens or constrains potential. Open potential is only available by embracing multiplicity, i.e. acknowledging competing claims and seeking new utopias from which new, widely acceptable regimes of control and practice emerge. However, the eternal tension in the BE paradigm is that growth drives expanding infrastructure and resource extraction, and is at odds with delivering systemic environmental conservation. We see BE policy privileging economy over environment—the oceans are first created as development space before consideration of environmental conservation priorities. MSP processes presuppose development and are growth-led, MSP being regarded as an economic development tool—creating zones of use, enclosure, and access rights to support market development. The resource-dependent, growth-based development imaginary promises social benefits (e.g. employment) but instead accelerates social metabolism (Bogadóttir 2020 ; Nogué-Algueró  2020 ), leading to negative social and environmental externalities. BE discourses and practices create new management entities, materially affecting financial flows, property rights, and other boundary demarcations. Failed utopias, of poor access to resources, reduced income and employment, disenfranchisement, and community fractures, result from the appropriation of material resources and space by powerful interests.

Looking at the spatial dimensions of governance, we see BE as a socio-material network of diverse relations and development potentials strongly influenced by the material properties of natural resources. Massey ( 2005 ) called for the recognition, in development contexts, of a multiplicity of potentialities of space. Using place-space–time theory, we can delve deeper into these spatial relations than Massey was able, by recognising Openness as potential and Emergence as outcomes. The potential of the BE is constrained by post-political processes in which fundamental assumptions about ocean governance and development priorities remain unquestioned, and in which alternative imaginaries and discourses are excluded. In this analysis, potentialities fall into three categories: new economic frontiers, managing potentials of limited resources, and repressed potential revealed by political struggle. Through discourses of Blue Growth, the BE favours high growth sectors, such as energy, minerals, bio-economy, requiring new material, spatial and institutional infrastructures. Potential for growth and investment is created through discourses that “[re-story] economy as economic practices that always are embedded in ecological conditions” (Winder and Le Heron 2017 :17) opening up new spaces for capital (e.g. “Blue Carbon”, “Blue Energy”), or which foreground unexploited wealth (Nogué-Algueró, 2020 ) and promote valuation of environments and natural capital in monetary terms (e.g. Choi 2017 ; Satizábal et al. 2020 ). Managing the potentialities of multiple resources occupying one ocean space demands trade-offs, these underpinned by decision-making principles (such as ecosystem-based management, Winder and Le Heron 2017 ) or mechanisms such as MSP. However, questions regarding legitimacy and whose interests are being served (Aschenbrenner et al. 2020 ) by these devices, hint at their failings and prompt the questioning of the adequacy of the practical policy tools at our disposal to manage the tensions between environment and economy that lie at the core of the BE paradigm (Winder and Le Heron 2017 ).

The importance of “place”

I posed the question “Does place matter?” and do different places demand different practices of government? Campbell ( 2018 :23) succinctly defines place as “physical spaces that people naturalize through patterns, behaviour and communications”, reflecting Lefebvre’s analysis of the complexities of place as socially produced, elucidated through his trialectic of spatial perspectives (perceived space, conceived space, and spaces of representation) in which all three modes are in an “ongoing state of mutual reproduction and transformation” (see Whaley 2018 :23–24). Thus, place, being relational and co-produced, is multiple (Massey 2005 ) and individual places overlap in their locatedness and orientation (Malpas 2012 ). When considering BE and the exploitation of marine resources, whether static or mobile, we need to understand “place”, therefore, from multiple perspectives in order to first define places of concern before we can allocate, use, and conserve resources equitably. That is, we need to understand the interplay between the materiality of space (and its consequent spatial relations) and uses, users, technologies, practices, regimes of governance, etc., and recognise that the resulting “place”, being co-produced, is unique to each stakeholder and each BE sector. This calls for an inclusive, political process to enable worldviews to be shared and understood and choices to be articulated and agreed positions negotiated. Perhaps the most telling example in this study is that of indigenous islander’s views on seabed mining in Papua New Guinea (Childs 2020 ), who regard “the sea and its life is part of one thing. It is part of us” representing a relational view of the earth which is inclusive of the sea and in which seabed mineral extraction is regarded as impacting all life. Other examples are also evident—Faroe Islands (Bogadóttir 2020 ); Barcelona (Nogué-Algueró  2020 ); Malta (Said and MacMillan 2020 )—in which conflicts regarding the same location are in fact about different places . Because place reflects a complex amalgam of materiality, cultural perspectives, and lived experience (i.e. Lefebvre’s trialectic), it is place that is important rather than physical location in the context of spatial planning and other forms of governance over physically located material resources. A governmentality that does not recognise the material and spatial heterogeneity of the world, represented as place, will exist in conflict with opposing natural and social forces. We see this in the transgression of territorial boundaries by migratory tuna, whose mobility resists State-centred controls (Andriamahefazafy and Kull 2019 ). In response, new institutions must be formed (such as the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, a multi-State partnership governed by international Agreement) to develop more collaborative rationalities of government for tuna resources. We see it also in the effect of policies to intensify aquaculture and the inability of coastal ecosystems in which the resultant fish farms are located to assimilate the material inputs to these farming systems (high protein fish feeds) leading to “ecological distribution conflicts” (Bogadóttir 2020 ) which challenge the prevailing growth-centred governmentality. Thus, different places do demand differing forms of governance, enacted through different practices and rationalities (collaborative or ecologically centred in these two examples).

I turn next to the question of the degree to which governance relations produce and shape the spaces of the Blue Economy. The stated intent of the BE paradigm is to promote sustainable development in the oceans to meet the development needs of society whilst also protecting the natural heritage of the oceans for future generations (UNDESA 2014 ). However, it is apparent from the cases analysed here that the BE paradigm has been far more successful in practice in reformatting the ocean environment as developable space, which is having and will have far-reaching consequences for ocean ecosystems and those people dependent on them, especially traditional coastal dwellers. In the Faroes, coastal commons are being transformed: “Whereas harbors were previously integral parts of local communities, the past century of blue growth has transformed them into industrial areas. Harbors have been enclosed from the public, and most recently, harbor areas are being privatized.” (Bogadottir 2020 :112). In the Philippines, “new partnerships between public and private sector actors forge networks, boundaries, and management practices………producing abstract knowledge and practices (financing ideas, technologies, territories) that reorder and rebrand oceans as territories with economic potential.” (Satizábal et al. 2020 :18). In Malta, economic restructuring of fishing fleets in favour of industrial-scale fishing introduced new fishing practices and technologies, altering seabed habitats (Said and MacMillan 2020 ) to produce new ocean spaces.

In summary, we can identify a widespread BE governmentality driven by an ideology of growth, an “ economentality ”, Footnote 2 framing oceans as a resource frontier for economic growth and international investment. Anthropogenic imaginaries render living and non-living resources in terms of economic value through techno-spatial growth imaginaries, altering perceptions of what matters (e.g. economic value over intrinsic or cultural values) and changing power relations. This governmentality privileges deployment of new technologies, market incentives, and technocratic regulation with the aim of boosting global commoditised economic growth. This in turn fosters policies of expanding infrastructure and resource extraction, characterised by institutions designed to create investable subjects, such as seabed mining concessions or fish quotas. Marine space is governed through processes of discursive and material territorialisation using new accounting practices and geolocation technologies, for example, to enclose space and create investable units of resource. Existing and new sectors and initiatives are enrolled into a growth-fuelled imaginary, reducing relations between society and oceans to an economic calculus, overturning or appropriating historic regimes, and creating new sites of conflict through deployment of practices that are out of tune with the materiality of oceans or the complexity of coastal livelihoods. The practical manifestations of these rationalities is that ocean resources are physically removed (mined, harvested, extracted) from ocean spaces, not only having the immediate effect of removing those elements from the ocean—there are longer term consequences as well, arising from modified ecosystem dynamics and their effects on the material and spatial nature of the oceans themselves.

In this analysis of 17 empirical cases of the BE as practiced, we can see a range of common trends amounting to a coherent discourse. Most important amongst them, I would argue, concern (1) the relationship between the BE and sustainable development, (2) the marketisation of natural resources and the corporatisation of the means of their exploitation, and (3) poor levels of engagement with the multiple potentialities of the BE, which I expand upon in the following three paragraphs.

Using the analytical frameworks of governmentality and place-space-times together reveals a complex spatialised governmentality emerging through the articulation and pursuit of the Blue Economy as a policy goal. It is revealed as something other than a manifestation of sustainable development—an economentality , privileging economic growth before environmental protection, the latter being predicated on ocean space first being rendered as developable space through territorialisation and enclosure. New knowledges generated through State-sponsored survey describe and format ocean space anew, as a container of enumerated resources, untapped but representing future sovereign wealth to be exploited for the good of all. New technologies enable ocean resources to be geolocated in bounded units, to demarcate new territories, to enclose space through the introduction of new regimes of exclusion/inclusion, leading to its allocation amongst competing uses and users and making it visible to capital.

Corporatisation of once-traditionally managed resources and capacities, through the introduction of such devices as ITQs in fisheries or seabed mining concessions, generates inequality and conflict within coastal communities and changes the dynamics of employment and labour, undermining livelihoods and cultures. New industries, such as seabed mining or aquaculture, are uncomfortably superimposed on traditional resource utilisation practices and the spaces within which they take place. Together, the transformation of the old and the introduction of the new cause conflict and dispossession through the collision of incommensurable imaginaries—economic growth through commodification versus community wellbeing or one-world, more-than-human spiritualities. MSP is as yet an ineffective tool for balancing the conflicting demands of managing growth whilst protecting the environment. It is open to co-option by powerful interests having access to capacities and knowledges that are denied to the marginalised coastal dwellers who have most to lose—their culture, their territory, and their material means of living.

This analysis reveals multiple potentialities of the BE and identifies the need to incorporate more open dialogue into its practice. Whilst it emerged in part as a political tool for island and coastal states to gain more leverage in international policy arenas (Silver et al. 2015 ), in its practice, it is developing as a post-political hegemon, the objective of economic growth being presumed as a fundamental and incontrovertible principle. Whilst proponents would argue that this is balanced by measures to protect nature, in emerging practice, this takes second place to economy and at best the BE is a two-speed governmental project which risks the globalised economy running roughshod over environmental and social priorities as the forces of commodification, marketisation, privatisation, and capital win over resources and influence.

The use of Dean’s governmentality analytic has allowed the elucidation of a complex and nuanced understanding of the Blue Economy, complementing earlier discourse and content analyses (Silver et al. 2015 ; Voyer et al. 2018 ). Not only do we understand the rationales that have been developed to justify the Blue Economy, but we also see how it is implemented (through regimes of practices). The spatial analytic reveals additional insights regarding opportunity, risk, and outcomes.

Finally, I have highlighted the role of the ocean’s material and spatial relations to the BE governmentality, and drawn attention to the importance of place. Place is co-produced, by relations of governance as well as other social and material relations, and is multiple and overlapping, creating a complex governmental challenge. On the one hand, the material and spatial specificities of places have often profound consequences for how governance is exercised, creating sites and spaces of resistance. On the other hand, governmentality, through the discursive rationalities, the technologies, practices, and devices deployed in its name, undoubtedly is an important force in the co-production of space. Given this relational complexity, it is not clear that we are yet equipped with a sufficiently sophisticated understanding of place to successfully rise to the challenge that BE governance poses.

Data availability

This work is based on published sources detailed in the text.

Code availability

Not applicable.

Change history

05 june 2024.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40152-024-00372-2

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Blue economy: community case studies addressing the poverty–environment nexus in ocean and coastal management.

1. Introduction

• How the blue economy finds its application on-the-ground, particularly at local and community level.
• How local blue economy practices can help addressing the poverty–environment nexus, including by upscaling best practices.

2. Materials and Methods

• conservation and rehabilitation of coastal ecosystems and habitats;
• prevention and reduction of land-based pollution;
• freshwater resources management;
• fisheries, land and forest and other natural resources management;
• capacity development, networking, knowledge sharing and learning

3. Results: Community-Based Blue Economy Cases

3.1. china: restoration and sustainable use of seagrass beds for sea cucumber aquaculture, 3.1.1. project context, 3.1.2. project implementation.

• Coordinate with the local management department to obtain permission to use the sea area;
• Develop and apply the method of sexual reproduction with artificial auxiliary to obtain the seeds of Zostera marina for restoring the seagrass beds;
• Organize technical training for fishers and provide necessary support to restore seagrass beds;
• Provide training for fishers on technology for sea cucumber culture in seagrass beds;
• Compile a technical manual of seagrass bed restoration and promote the project model.

3.1.3. Environmental Results

3.1.4. socio-economic results, 3.2. samoa: coral reef restoration and sustainable fisheries, 3.2.1. project context, 3.2.2. project implementation.

• Sustain the protection of the ecological and biodiversity of the Lefagaoalii MPA with the application of sound management practices;
• Improve the environmental condition of threatened habitat and inshore resources and marine biodiversity;
• Promote ecotourism and develop income-generating opportunities for the village community;
• Raise awareness and build technical capacity of the Lefagaoalii community to manage the MPA sustainably;
• Promote active collaboration and partnership with relevant stakeholders and supporting partners for the effective management of project activities.

3.2.3. Environmental Results

3.2.4. socio-economic results, 3.3. vietnam: community-based management of coastal and marine resources for livelihood improvement, 3.3.1. project context, 3.3.2. project implementation.

• Breeding and stocking of species;
• Demarcation of zones for exploitation and protection of parent breeds;
• Installation of artificial reefs to replace reef habitat;
• Collection of water samples for environmental quality assessment.

3.3.3. Environmental Results

3.3.4. socio-economic results, 4. discussion: experiences and lessons learned, 4.1 science-based blue economy, 4.2. community-based blue economy, 4.3. visibility of local benefits and practicality of results, 4.4. in the sampled cases, communication, awareness raising, and advocacy were found to be key elements, 4.5. multi-stakeholders’ partnerships, 4.6. partnerships are found to be particularly important for scaling up good practices, 5. conclusions, author contributions, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest, appendix a. questionnaire for case studies.

• Project Title:
• Type of organization:
• Number of people served:
• SGP Contribution:
• UNDP contribution:
• In-Cash Co-financing:
• In-Kind Co-financing:
• Start Date:
• Please tell us about how the initiative started?
• What was the main goal of the initiative?
• What was the primary focus of the initiative(s) and how did they become a reality?
• Who were the key players?
• What are the main objectives of the initiative?
• What was the mission? Has the vision changed at all? If so, why?
• Give a brief description of the country context.
• Provide any other relevant information.
• Please list and explain which are/were the main project activities and how they were completed.
• What was the main objective of the work?
• Who were the target beneficiaries?
• What would you say are the key innovations that make your project stand out and were critical to successful environmental, social and economic outcomes?
• How did you engage the local community and key stakeholders to participate in the project?
• Where applicable please provide engineering drawings and dimensions of the equipment/technology produced/used?
• What were the main challenges the community faced when implementing the project?
• What did the organization do to overcome these challenges?
• At what phase of the project did these challenges arise (planning/implementation/evaluation)?
• What could have been done differently or better?
• What would you recommend for improving on future programming?
• Was there any special participation by women (e.g., as project proponents, implementers, beneficiaries). If yes, how vital was their participation in the project’s success?
• Please elaborate on the nature of the women’s active participation in this project (e.g., what were their roles, did they drive decision making)?
• Were the women economically empowered by the project activities? If yes, please include specifics (e.g., increase in income, increased financial management capacity, access to a long-term revenue source)
• Were the women’s social status improved as a result of the project activities? Please explain how. Has their participation in the decision-making process of their community increased?
• Please provide any statistics on the number of women involved in the project, or the number of women benefitted by the project?
• Did SGP assist grantees to acquire gender training?
• What action did SGP take to overcome gender barriers in achieving SGP project goals? In case any project created a gender issue (e.g., gender imbalance), what were those issues and what action did SGP take?
• Does SGP have a strategic partner to strengthen gender equality and gender empowerment in your projects?
• What measurable impact has the project had in terms of environmental protection since the beginning of the project? Where possible, please provide statistics and numbers that document the change or impact of the project over time.
• (Biodiversity) Have species, habitat or ecosystems been protected through your work? If so, please describe.
• How does your group measure the environmental impacts?
• What measurable change has there been in local incomes and job opportunities (change in average household income, job creation, revenues, livelihood diversification, livelihood/income diversification, market access, etc.)? Where possible, please provide statistics and numbers that document the change or impact of the project over time.
• Have there been secondary benefits (investments in infrastructure, poverty reduction, higher awareness, etc.)?
• Have revenues from the project been reinvested into school fees, hospitals, local infrastructure, etc.?
• In what ways has your initiative advocated for policy change?
• Has there been success in influencing policy at what level (community, institution, municipal, regional) and what were the critical factors that made that success possible?
• What have been the barriers and the successes removing these barriers?
• Have there been any regional (subnational) or national policies or laws that were enacted or changed as a result of your project?
• (Biodiversity specific) Has your community engaged in the planning, implementation or review of National Biodiversity Strategic Action Plans?
• (Climate Change specific) Has your community engaged in the planning, implementation or review of the National Adaptation Programmes of Action ( NAPAs )?
• Was there any special participation by IP (e.g., as project proponents, implementers, beneficiaries)? If yes, how vital was their participation in the project’s success?
• Please provide any statistics on the number of IP involved in the project, or the number of IP benefitted by the project?
• Did you use a special methodology or approach to work with Indigenous communities such as participatory video?
• What are the key components that make this project sustainable (e.g., training, human resources, financial resources, capacity building, community participation, awareness, organizational support)?
• Which partner agencies and organizations, if any, are furthering project sustainability?
• What is needed to make the project more sustainable?
• What would you advise other communities who wish to create an effective and sustainable project to ensure sustainability?
• List of partners and their roles in the project/initiative success, how have they assisted in achieving the project’s goals?
• Lessons on the critical contributions of certain partners (e.g., universities for sampling, and monitoring and evaluation)
• How easy would it be to replicate the successes in a different context or country?
• What mistakes should be avoided if the project were to be replicated?
• Has your project been up-scaled? If yes, please explain how and which organization lead the up-scaling process
• Have you shared your successful model with other communities?
• What was the vehicle for knowledge exchange?
• How many new communities and beneficiaries are applying your model?
• If the model has been replicated, please explain how, with what support from which stakeholders, and how many beneficiaries.
• In your opinion, how important is exchanging peer-to-peer knowledge?
• Have you experienced barriers to successful knowledge exchange? If so, what are they, and how could they potentially be overcome?
• Give a brief description of the good practice (300 words maximum) highlighting the innovative features and results achieved by the project/activity.
• What are the lessons learned on Implementation, work with communities, technical lessons, policy lessons, M&E?
• Briefly describe SGP involvement and the technical support provided.
• Describe what worked well and how it was done.
• What were the key successes of this project?
• What factors supported the success?
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Chen, S.; De Bruyne, C.; Bollempalli, M. Blue Economy: Community Case Studies Addressing the Poverty–Environment Nexus in Ocean and Coastal Management. Sustainability 2020 , 12 , 4654. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114654

Chen S, De Bruyne C, Bollempalli M. Blue Economy: Community Case Studies Addressing the Poverty–Environment Nexus in Ocean and Coastal Management. Sustainability . 2020; 12(11):4654. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114654

Chen, Sulan, Charlotte De Bruyne, and Manasa Bollempalli. 2020. "Blue Economy: Community Case Studies Addressing the Poverty–Environment Nexus in Ocean and Coastal Management" Sustainability 12, no. 11: 4654. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114654

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Putting coastal communities at the center of a sustainable blue economy: a review of risks, opportunities, and strategies.

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Corrigendum: Putting coastal communities at the center of a sustainable blue economy: A review of risks, opportunities, and strategies

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• 1 Department of Geography, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom
• 2 Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom
• 3 WWF Mediterranean, Rome, Italy
• 4 WWF UK, Woking, United Kingdom

New approaches to ocean governance for coastal communities are needed. With few exceptions, the status quo does not meet the diverse development aspirations of coastal communities or ensure healthy oceans for current and future generations. The blue economy is expected to grow to USD2.5–3 trillion by 2030, and there is particular interest in its potential to alleviate poverty in Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States, and to support a blue recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper presents a selective, thematic review of the blue economy literature to examine: (i) the opportunities and risks for coastal communities, (ii) the barriers and enablers that shape community engagement, and (iii) the strategies employed by communities and supporting organizations, which can be strengthened to deliver a ‘sustainable' blue economy and improve social justice for coastal communities. Our review finds that under business-as-usual and blue growth, industrial fisheries, large-scale aquaculture, land reclamation, mining, and oil and gas raise red flags for communities and marine ecosystems. Whereas, if managed sustainably, small-scale fisheries, coastal aquaculture, seaweed farming and eco-tourism are the most likely to deliver benefits to communities. Yet, these are also the sectors most vulnerable to negative and cumulative impacts from other sectors. Based on our evaluation of enablers, barriers and strategies, the paper argues that putting coastal communities at the center of a clear vision for an inclusive Sustainable Blue Economy and co-developing a shared and accessible language for communities, practitioners and policy-makers is essential for a more equitable ocean economy, alongside mainstreaming social justice principles and integrated governance that can bridge different scales of action and opportunity.

1. Introduction

The UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) signifies a new level of policy and research attention on the ocean. It provides a critical opportunity to advance a more socially just and sustainable blue economy to improve the lives of millions of people living in coastal communities, globally, whose livelihoods, cultures and identities depend on healthy marine ecosystems ( WWF, 2015a ; FAO, 2022 ).

The blue economy is estimated to be worth USD1.5 billion and is expected to grow to USD 2.5–3 trillion by 2030 ( WWF, 2015b ; OECD, 2016 ). There is growing interest in the potential of the blue economy to alleviate poverty in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and to support a blue recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic ( OECD, 2021 ). For example, the blue economy is declared as “the next frontier” in the African Union's Agenda 2063 (in UNECA, 2016 ; Okafor-Yarwood et al., 2020 ). In parallel, a recent analysis reveals exponential growth across diverse marine sectors ( Jouffray et al., 2020 ): the seafood sector is the fastest growing food industry; coastal tourism is the fastest growing tourism sector; shipping accounts for 80% of global trade; 70% of new oil and gas discoveries are offshore; and more than 1.3 million km 2 of the seabed in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) is currently licensed for Deep-Sea Mining (DSM) exploration. This so-called “blue acceleration” is occurring under climate change and rapidly shifting geopolitics, which are concentrating activities where conditions are favorable and creating new opportunities and risks for coastal communities ( Jouffray et al., 2020 ). In this paper, we review recent literature on the blue economy, sustainable blue economy and so-called blue justice. We focus on what this literature reveals about how coastal communities are impacted by and engaging in blue economy activities. Our aim is to examine the opportunities and risks posed by the emergent blue economy, and reveal tangible ways to operationalise a more socially just approach to deliver a Sustainable Blue Economy.

2. Approach

The paper is based on a selective, thematic review of published ( n = 23) and grey literature ( n = 12) on the blue economy, with emphasis on literature pertaining to coastal communities and the blue economy ( Supplementary Table 1 ). We conducted a search of published articles on the Web of Science using the key search terms: “blue economy” OR “blue growth” OR “blue grabbing” OR “blue justice” OR “blue equality” OR “ocean economy” OR “ocean justice” OR “ocean grabbing” OR “ocean equality”. From this database, we selected recent articles that provided an overview of the field with particular emphasis on the implications for coastal communities [from ( Silver et al., 2015 ) analysis of blue economy discourse at Rio+20 to date]. We supplemented the review of published articles with a review of grey literature from a range of key organizations shaping the blue economy agenda, including: WWF, UNDP, UNEP, OECD, the Commonwealth and the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy. Our review is not intended to be systematic or comprehensive, rather it highlights key themes emerging in the literature around coastal communities and the blue economy.

Specifically, the review examines current narratives around the blue economy, the opportunities and risks of an emerging blue economy for communities, and the enablers, barriers and strategies shaping how communities can meaningfully engage in a Sustainable Blue Economy (SBE). Hence, when reviewing each document, we extracted information and examples on risks, opportunities, enablers, barriers and strategies. Based on this review, the paper ends with a discussion of the narratives that support community engagement in a SBE, through highlighting some of the internal contradictions in these agendas, and outlines tangible next steps to promote social (blue) justice for coastal communities in a sustainable blue economy. In this paper, social justice is understood as both a set of principles and as a social movement intended to achieve fairer process and outcomes for coastal communities in the ocean economy ( sensu Schlosberg and Collins, 2014 ; see also Jentoft et al., 2022 ).

3. Coastal communities and the blue economy

3.1. the fragmenting blue economy narrative.

The blue economy agenda was first and foremost about improving ocean health and the sustainability of ocean uses: the term was first introduced in a book published for the Club of Rome, which framed the blue economy as innovation, technology and entrepreneurship for a greening of the ocean economy ( Pauli, 2004 ). Literature on the subject has accelerated since 2010/2011, and the blue economy discourse has taken hold in international policy circles (e.g., The Economist, 2015 ).

Most definitions of the blue economy point to it having three pillars—environment, economy and society ( Louey, 2022 ). As the concept of a blue economy has gained traction in academic and policy circles it has splintered and moved away from its central premise as a parallel to the green economy. Different strands of the discourse emphasize different pillars and specific problems, solutions and participants. Silver et al. (2015) identify four strands: oceans as natural capital; oceans as good business; oceans as integral to (Pacific) Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and; oceans as small-scale fisheries livelihoods ( Table 1 ). More recently, social justice and equity framings are gaining high-level attention, as illustrated by reports released by the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (e.g., Toward Ocean Equity 1 and A Sustainable and Equitable Blue Recovery to the COVID-19 Crises 2 ) Other efforts to re-frame the blue economy discourse include: community-based blue economies ( UNDP, 2018 ; Bradford et al., 2020 ; Phelan et al., 2020 ); community-supported fisheries ( Campbell et al., 2014 ); Blue Communities ( Campbell et al., 2021 ); and Blue de-growth ( Ertor and Hadjimichael, 2020 ).

Table 1 . Summary of diverging blue economy narratives (based on Silver et al., 2015 ).

Nevertheless, the social pillar of the blue economy is the least developed; the economic pillar has dominated in practice. Consequently, social and equity issues need to be considered alongside the environment in discussions about ocean futures ( Bennett et al., 2021 ). One way to centralize social justice and advance the social pillar of a sustainable blue economy is to foreground the experiences of coastal communities who depend on healthy oceans and are highly impacted by transitions in ocean governance, as we aim to do in this review. Reflecting emphasis to date on the economic and environmental pillars of the blue economy, in the next sections we distinguish between the blue economy as business-as-usual or blue growth, and a Sustainable Blue Economy, defined by WWF as one which: “ restores, protects and maintains diverse, productive and resilient marine ecosystems; is based on clean technologies, renewable energy and circular material flows, and; provides social and economic benefits for current and future generations ” ( WWF, 2018 ).

3.2. Opportunities and risks of the blue economy for coastal communities

3.2.1. opportunities.

The blue economy is said to offer indirect opportunities to coastal communities through: (i) national (blue) economic development “trickling down” to coastal citizens via creation of jobs and new financial opportunities; (ii) increased ocean rents and re-direction of subsidies and investment toward the environmental and social pillars of the blue economy; iii) improved infrastructure and technology enhancing access to information, energy and other services; iv) co-location of activities with co-benefits including climate change adaptation, provision of substrate or infrastructure, and enhanced cultural value; v) potential to enhance protection and restoration of ecosystem services, and vi) strengthened national sovereignty ( Table 2 ).

Table 2 . Summary of the key opportunities for coastal communities offered by a sustainable blue economy, and the risks posed by business-as-usual.

Recently, attention has focused on the prospect of a blue recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 restrictions severely disrupted the movement of people and goods, with considerable adverse impacts on tourism, shipping, and international trade. SIDS and vulnerable groups, like women, were deeply affected ( Northrop et al., 2020 ). During the pandemic, self-sufficiency at local and national levels became vital, highlighting the importance of sectors such as small-scale fisheries, community-based aquaculture and other local enterprises. Moving forward, the literature identifies opportunities to leverage the COVID-19 recovery agenda to mobilize and re-direct financing and resources toward the environmental and social pillars of the blue economy. For example, the USA's Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act provides fisheries allocations for states, tribes and territories negatively impacted by COVID-19. The OECD (2021) identifies particular opportunities for SIDS to use support for a blue recovery through addressing debt, creating and seizing new investment opportunities, and building resilience and sustainability of critical sectors (greening ports, sustainable tourism, ocean health).

Our review suggests that a sustainable blue economy can present direct opportunities for coastal communities through improving markets, catalyzing new sustainable development sectors and directing investment into community development and livelihoods projects. Direct opportunities include: (i) alternative, enhanced and sustained livelihoods; (ii) enhanced food and nutritional security; (iii) Payments for Ecosystem Services; (iv) capacity development, and; (v) improved governance, equity and rights ( Table 2 ). An example from Costa Rica involves a partnership between CoopeSoliDar 3 and local women to improve the value chain; shortening it for high quality, local products and labeling it as fair trade. The literature also notes the potential to improve the availability and access to nutritious aquatic foods locally and globally through better-managed capture fisheries and sustainable mariculture and aquaculture under a SBE. Sustainable mariculture production of a diversity of seafood, including shellfish and seaweed, in particular, is highlighted as being a source of sustainable and healthy food that can be accessed by poor communities ( Farmery et al., 2021 ).

Other direct benefits can be derived from Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) to communities, with the literature noting the particular potential for payments for bundles of ecosystem services contributing to key outcomes such as water quality ( Vanderklift et al., 2019 ). To give a detailed example, Okafor-Yarwood et al. (2020) , outline the case of the Mikoko Pamoja project in Gazi Bay, Kenya, the first mangrove PES project in the world. Approximately 117 hectares of natural and planted mangrove forests are under a co-management regime between communities, government agencies and NGOs, with carbon credits verified through Plan Vivo and sold on the international voluntary carbon market. By raising income from stacked services including carbon credits and other income-generating activities such as beekeeping and ecotourism, the project safeguards the mangroves and the multiple services they provide to the local community. Between 2014 and 2020, the community participants received USD 96,915 in PES payments.

The literature points to opportunities for capacity development and community empowerment relating to improved ocean and financial literacy, technological capacity, and entrepreneurship. It also identifies improvements in governance, equity and rights as direct opportunities for communities as well as key enablers of an inclusive SBE. For example, coaching for gender equity in the blue economy can lead to improvements in self-confidence, negotiating-skills and assertiveness for women more broadly ( Österblom et al., 2020 ). Equity in particular is presented as important as a means (enabler) and as an end (opportunity). It can represent a virtuous cycle: improved experiences of equitable treatment and outcomes in some areas can lead to expectations about a minimum standard of socially just practice in other areas and across scales ( Österblom et al., 2020 ).

Despite the huge potential for social and economic prosperity in a healthy and resilient ocean economy, there are three important considerations to note. First, there are competing requirements for space across marine sectors and they cannot all develop to their full potential simultaneously ( Crona et al., 2021 ). Second, the capacity of these sectors to contribute to the blue economy varies across regions in response to natural resource availability and, more importantly, enabling conditions ( Cisneros-Montemayor et al., 2021 ). Third, as highlighted in the following sections, many of the indirect and direct opportunities rely on a sustainable blue economy where sustainable use, protection and recovery of marine ecosystems is central, and where costs, benefits, and livelihood and food security opportunities are shared. Notably, the specific opportunities for coastal communities to engage in these sectors directly can be relatively limited.

3.2.2. Risks

There are concerns that the dominant blue economy agenda prioritizes economic growth over sustainability and equity, with oceans viewed “as a source of wealth and prosperity … whose economic potential needs unlocking” ( Childs and Hicks, 2019 , p. 324). The blue economy agenda has been described as akin to a blue frontier or a blue rush . Importantly, despite continued prominence in some blue economy narratives, evidence suggests that the ‘trickle-down' of benefits from ocean-based economic growth to communities is unlikely ( Wieland et al., 2016 ; Akinci, 2018 ), and prioritization of economic over environmental and social objectives can accelerate unsustainable use of marine resources, increase sectoral and user conflict, lead to elite capture and exacerbate inequities. Such business-as-usual and blue growth trajectories pose indirect and direct risks to coastal communities ( Table 2 ).

A review of sectoral interactions in the blue economy noted that 13 out of 14 ocean sectors have interactions resulting in negative ecosystem impacts ( Crona et al., 2021 ). The diverse suite of impacts identified can adversely affect coastal communities through loss of valued ecosystem services, with fisheries found to be particularly sensitive to negative impacts from other sectors mediated by marine ecosystems. Importantly, the authors note the potential for cumulative impacts driven by particular sectors: drilling, mining, aggregates, shipping, fishing, and aquaculture. Others also note that distant activities, such as DSM or fishing in ABNJ still impact vital coastal ecosystems through ecological connectivity and ocean circulation and advocate for a total prohibition of activities in ABNJ ( Popova et al., 2019 ; UNEP FI, 2022 ). This includes calls directly from small-scale fishers' representatives in Africa and the Pacific to prohibit activities, noting a “blue fear” of DSM and “other destructive polluting activities promoted as part of the blue economy” ( CAOPA, 2022 ).

Sectoral interactions can also result in direct conflict within and between marine sectors. Crona et al. (2021) , identify military operations, shipping, and drilling as three sectors most commonly associated with conflicts. Aside from issues relating to climate change and pollution, oil and gas operations, in particular, are detrimental to capture fisheries, aquaculture, tourism and shipping ( Jouffray et al., 2020 ); and fisheries and tourism are the sectors most vulnerable to conflicts with other marine uses ( Crona et al., 2021 ). Moreover, the ability of communities to voice their concerns in an increasingly contested space will be challenging, with a risk that conflict is resolved in favor of more powerful economic interests ( Voyer and Leeuwen, 2019 ).

Indeed, in a “business-as-usual” blue economy many coastal communities, small-scale sectors, and minority groups are marginalized from the high-level decision-making processes that are defining the blue economy, and from its implementation and governance ( Cohen et al., 2019 ). The exclusion of coastal communities is particularly associated with offshore sectors, such as DSM and industrial fishing, suggesting a lack of connection between more remote initiatives and coastal communities.

A blue economy that fails to address or exacerbates unsustainable use, sector conflicts and marginalization of communities presents a number of significant direct risks to coastal communities' lives, livelihoods, food security and rights. As competition for ocean space increases, less politically powerful local communities and traditional resource users could be displaced or dispossessed of the ocean resources they depend upon ( Bennett et al., 2019 ; Phelan et al., 2020 ). In particular, prioritization of larger-scale economic activities and growth sectors can mean activities such as small-scale fisheries are “subtly and overtly squeezed for geographic, political and economic space” ( Cohen et al., 2019 , p. 171), with important implications for access to resources, community livelihoods and food security. Reflecting development-induced displacement on land, Okafor-Yarwood et al. (2020) , report the adverse impacts of port development on the livelihoods of fishers and farmers along the African coast. They give the example of Kribi Port in Cameroon where efforts to relocate communities were ineffective in addressing the wellbeing and livelihoods of displaced communities. Note too that top-down marine spatial planning processes and, specifically, the expansion of poorly sited and planned (no-take and highly regulated) Marine Protected Areas have been found to displace and dispossess Indigenous groups and other local communities from the marine ecosystems on which they depend economically, socially and culturally ( Farmery et al., 2021 ).

In sum, community livelihoods that depend on marine ecosystems can be adversely impacted by environmental degradation, dispossession, displacement, direct conflict with other sectors, all of which are exacerbated by marginalisation from top-down planning and blue economy decision-making. In addition, the literature notes that as part of a developing blue economy, increased reliance on livelihoods (e.g., fisheries and tourism) that are already highly precarious and vulnerable to external perturbation (e.g., climate change and terrorism) may escalate adverse impacts on coastal communities. The blue economies of low-lying coastal areas, SIDS and LDCs are disproportionately affected by direct impacts of the blue economy on coastal livelihoods ( Österblom et al., 2020 ).

Food and nutritional security are similarly impacted by risks generated by an unregulated blue economy and external perturbations. In particular, the commodification of aquatic food production has the potential to dramatically alter local food systems. Small-scale fisheries provide a key source of micro-nutrients and protein for over a billion low-income consumers globally ( Cohen et al., 2019 ). In a “business-as-usual” blue economy, this sector faces challenges from trade-offs among local, domestic and export markets; demand for high value seafood; and volatilities in global food markets and distribution channels. For instance, mariculture and coastal aquaculture are widely promoted to make up for declining wild-capture fisheries, yet production remains relatively low compared to wild-capture fisheries, and assumptions around substitutability fail to value the highly-dispersed subsistence uses and cultural importance of small-scale fisheries ( Govan, 2017 ).

Finally, a blue economy that prioritises economic growth over social objectives risks perpetrating human rights violations and social injustice directly against members of coastal communities. Growth in the blue economy poses risks to health, safety and wellbeing, with evidence of human trafficking, bonded labour, and health impacts in industries including industrial fisheries and shipping (ship-breaking) ( UNEP, 2021 ).

More broadly, existing inequalities in access to ocean resources can lead to unequal ability among ocean sectors, nations, communities and peoples to claim rights, take up opportunities, and influence the blue economy agenda thereby further exacerbating inequality ( Crona et al., 2021 ). The literature suggests economic growth does not “trickle down” and that in the absence of explicit efforts to improve societal welfare, it can result in the poorest people being made worse off, as seen in the seafood trade ( Farmery et al., 2021 ). Literature also contests assumptions that income from large-scale enterprises and government revenue is redistributed to those in need, raising important questions about the social benefits of offshore sectors such as DSM ( Béné et al., 2016 ).

The sectors that come up consistently in the literature as concerns for coastal communities are mining, oil and gas, coastal development (urbanisation, port development, land reclamation), and industrial fishing ( Figure 1 ). These industries are expanding rapidly, for example: larger-scale aquaculture production is driving exponential growth in the seafood industry; 12 of 15 mega-cities are coastal; oil and gas is the largest ocean-based industry by value with further growth expected offshore; and sand and gravel mining and deep-sea mining exploration are accelerating to keep up with the construction and high-tech industries ( Jouffray et al., 2020 ). These sectors have poor environmental records, and are shown to adversely impact communities in a number of significant ways, yet, they deliver very few to no benefits for communities. They are highlighted here as red flags that will require specific attention in developing a socially just SBE.

Figure 1 . Illustration of red flags for coastal communities based on the consolidation of evidence from literature indicating risks to communities from key blue economy sectors. Red indicates high risk. Amber indicates moderate or mixed risks. Grey indicates uncertainty or no clear references in the study materials reviewed. Key (clockwise from 1): Rapidly expanding; Poor environment record; Unequal; Exclusive; Conflict; Displaces communities; Rights violations; Adversely impacts livelihoods; adversely impacts food security; Lack of benefit overall.

3.3. Barriers and enablers shaping engagement of communities in the blue economy

As well as understanding the opportunities and risks posed by the emerging blue economy for coastal communities, our review aimed to understand the conditions, broadly speaking, which influence the ability of coastal communities to influence the blue economy agenda, buffer its risks and take up its opportunities. In this section, we outline the barriers to and enablers of community engagement in a (sustainable) blue economy identified in the literature; organised into three themes related to power, capacities and governance. In Section 2.4 we then review the strategies used by coastal communities and supporting agencies to improve coastal community uptake and experiences of the blue economy.

3.3.1. Reducing power imbalances and structural inequalities

Power differentials between global north and south, governments and communities, and large-scale and small-scale producers are recognised as a key barrier to a more equitable (and sustainable) blue economy ( Govan, 2017 ; Österblom et al., 2020 ; Bennett et al., 2021 ; Cisneros-Montemayor et al., 2021 ). The blue economy is currently characterised by the persistence of structural inequalities in political negotiations, international trade-agreements, global markets and value chains, resources and capacities ( Table 3 ). For example, in Africa, 25% of all the marine catches in the continent are made by non-African states, resulting in the loss of USD 3.3 billion in potential earnings ( Okafor-Yarwood et al., 2020 ). Such power imbalances and inequalities are exacerbated by top-down and exclusive blue economy decision-making ( Okafor-Yarwood et al., 2020 ), alongside a lack of recognition for indigenous, customary and community knowledge, cultures and rights ( Österblom et al., 2020 ). To enable a shift to a more equitable and sustainable blue economy requires improved international co-operation, clearly defined territorial rights for nations and communities, formalised mechanisms to ensure inclusive decision-making at all scales (including large-scale and/or off-shore activities), and more attention to a broad suite of human rights. In particular, areas traditionally and collectively governed by Indigenous peoples and local communities should be appropriately recognized and secured.

Table 3 . List of factors identified in a strategic review of the literature as blocking and enabling the emergence of a more equitable sustainable blue economy.

3.3.2. Addressing a lack of capacity, knowledge and resources

A lack of capacity is often cited as a barrier to community involvement in the blue economy. Specifically, this relates to a lack of knowledge, financial capital, education and skills, time and interest ( UNDP, 2018 ; UNEP, 2021 ). Underpinning (scientific and technical) knowledge deficiencies are: scientific and knowledge inequalities; lack of appreciation for Indigenous and local knowledge; insufficient knowledge-sharing and promotion of best-practice; as well as widespread data and information gaps around the environmental, social and cultural impacts of blue economy activities ( Österblom et al., 2020 ). In response, valuing Indigenous knowledge, decolonising and democratising ocean research, and accounting for social impacts and social limits to growth are key enablers for a more equitable and sustainable blue economy.

Financially, the investments required to catalyse development of a sustainable blue economy, particularly at the community level, are substantial. The USD 13 billion of philanthropy and Overseas Development Assistance spent over the last decade is regarded as insufficient ( Sumaila et al., 2021 ). Ocean investments are often seen as high risk and there is a perceived lack of high-quality investment opportunities ( Sumaila et al., 2021 ), exacerbated by widespread under-valuation of marine and community resources ( Chen et al., 2020 ). Moreover, financial institutions are concentrated in the Global North and dominated by large corporations and multinationals ( UNEP, 2021 ). As such, finance can be challenging to access for the countries and communities that need it most ( UNDP, 2018 ; Okafor-Yarwood et al., 2020 ). Improving access to sustainable finance, as well as capacity building around business planning and enterprise development are key enablers for coastal community engagement in the blue economy. To this end, key frameworks, such as the Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Principles 4 have been developed to help re-direct harmful subsidies and market mechanisms; capture and re-distribute revenues for ocean uses; improve community access to finance and credit, and; foster new and innovative investments in green and social enterprises ( WWF, 2018 ). Beyond knowledge and financial resources, a broad suite of capacity and resource issues can limit communities' ability to and interest in engaging with the blue economy, from poverty and lack of social security; to lack of education, literacy and skills; to remoteness and organisational challenges. These present immediate barriers to accessing finance, understanding policy or scientific language (including the language of the blue economy), and navigating bureaucratic processes. To enable effective community engagement in the blue economy, approaches need to accommodate and address capacity issues within communities.

3.3.3. Improving governance of the blue economy

Non-existent, fragmented and poor governance are major barriers to a sustainable and equitable blue economy. Table 3 identifies constraints at the international/regional level (e.g., loopholes in international obligations and geopolitical manoeuvring) and at the national/sub-national level (e.g., poor planning, impact assessment and accountability), driven by factors such as low institutional and financial capacity, lack of political will, corruption and pressure from vested interests ( Govan, 2017 ; UNDP, 2018 ; Okafor-Yarwood et al., 2020 ; Österblom et al., 2020 ). Yet, effective governance is arguably the most significant enabler of an equitable and sustainable blue economy, including improved implementation of existing regulation and development of new policy and institutions to govern emerging and expanding sectors ( Sumaila et al., 2021 ). Clear governance frameworks, good governance principles, and inclusive and decentralised forms of governance are identified in the literature as critical to the delivery of an inclusive SBE. Our review also noted the need for civil society and private sector participation (including communities) to play a role in blue economy governance (e.g., voluntary agreements and codes of conduct, corporate social responsibility, social license to operate, certification) ( Voyer and Leeuwen, 2019 ; UNEP, 2021 ).

3.4. Strategies used by and to support communities navigate the blue economy

The risks and barriers associated with unsustainable blue growth being faced by coastal communities are numerous and the effort needed to deal with risks, in turn, limits the time and capacity communities have to create and take advantage of new opportunities from an emerging sustainable blue economy. There is high dependence on civil society groups, the third sector and/or governments to develop solutions in partnership with communities. Aligning with enabling factors, the literature review identified a diverse range of strategies that offer multiple avenues for pro-active support of communities and that can be employed as portfolios of activity ( Table 4 ).

Table 4 . Key strategies identified in a strategic review of the literature to ensure communities can address risks and take up opportunities in the blue economy.

Several facets of community and customary practice are significant for the development of the blue economy. These include: recognising that the oceans are not “uninhabited” empty spaces but replete with local and customary practices, knowledges and values; acknowledging that these practices, knowledges and values are under-documented and -recognised in scientific and policy discourses in terms of their importance to communities, to economies and to sustainable resource management; and being aware that formal recognition in the form of rights is, therefore, often missing ( Bennett et al., 2019 , 2021 ; Cohen et al., 2019 ; Österblom et al., 2020 ).

Many of the strategies that communities employ aim to showcase, document, defend and reinforce these customary practices and rights, which in turn can provide the authority to regulate their own and others' blue economy activities within coastal areas. Governments and supporting agencies can play a vital role in documenting, evidencing, monitoring and enforcing blue economy activities and their social and environmental impacts ( UNDP, 2018 ). For example, the Illuminating Hidden Harvests 5 and Too Big to Ignore 6 initiatives set out to document the value of small-scale fisheries. The literature notes the importance of valuing local knowledge systems, fostering access to available scientific and monitoring data, and democratising scientific processes to enable communities to generate new knowledge and information (e.g., through citizen science).

A co-production approach is often highlighted as a key strategy. Three scales of collaboration are important: (i) community participation in and ownership of blue economy initiatives from conception to monitoring ( Chen et al., 2020 ); (ii) collaboration between communities and government, private sector, and civil society ( UNDP, 2018 ); and (iii) co-operation at a regional and international level, among nations, multi-lateral agencies and the private sector ( Govan, 2017 ). Collaboration with diverse stakeholders across scales is seen as integral to scaling up the potential benefits of a SBE for communities ( Chen et al., 2020 ).

High levels of social capital, participation, and trust – and strategies that promote these – underpin effective partnerships. NGOs can play a vital role as trusted partners mediating relations between communities and other actors (e.g., governments and the private sector). A good example of where high social capital in communities and strong partnerships with NGOs has been effective in influencing blue economy outcomes is in the Arctic. Here, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) of the Arctic Council 7 and NGO allies have, among many other examples: (i) developed a vision for the Arctic's Blue Bioeconomy; (ii) scaled up efforts to document and digitise Arctic cultural heritage “including food heritage as a foundation for diversification of local economies and new approaches to adapt to Arctic change”, and; lobbied against oil exploration and extraction and successfully won a moratorium in court ( PAME, 2021 ). In the absence of trusting partnerships, local communities can resort to non-compliance, resistance and protest. These strategies did not feature in the blue economy literature (even where there was dissatisfaction with blue economy interventions such as the Kribi port development example detailed earlier), but are a well-known strategy in wider natural resource management literature ( Boonstra et al., 2017 ).

The role of governments and supporting agencies is particularly important in providing resources, building capacity and enhancing governance of the blue economy. Improved access to financial, technical, human and other resources can encourage adoption of new innovations, enable development of new livelihoods and market opportunities, incentivise changing practices, and improve transparency and accountability in supply chains and governance ( UNDP, 2018 ). Strategies to build capacity typically focus on the community level–for instance, in financial literacy, business skills and leadership–but can also target supporting agencies, the private sector and government agencies.

Finally, communities and supporting agencies play a critical role in influencing, developing and implementing blue economy governance across scales. Strategies include shaping incentive systems, planning and designating marine uses, lobbying and advocacy, and developing new policy and regulation directly. Factors seen as integral to scalability were: co-production approaches, peer-to-peer exchanges, collaboration with the private sector, financing, and innovative technologies (e.g., ICT can enable scaling up of citizen science data collection from manual inputs to a large database, which in turn has the potential to be rolled out across other areas).

4. Discussion and ways forward

Coastal communities are increasingly impacted by a blue acceleration whether or not it is explicitly driven by the blue economy agenda. Blue economy transitions are not currently shaped by communities' visions for development, nor are they necessarily explicitly aligned to Agenda 2030. Further, the capacity of communities to engage effectively with such rapid economic and governance transitions is limited. As a result, many of these change processes are experienced as external risks and barriers by communities.

Certainly, the review finds that there is a significant lag in blue economy governance and regulation to protect communities and the marine ecosystems they depend on. Ambitious individual growth trajectories across blue economy sectors threaten to collectively exceed the carrying capacity of the ocean and significantly escalate ocean conflicts. Fisheries and tourism — sectors on which communities often rely — are particularly vulnerable to adverse impacts from other blue economy sectors. Regulation of expanding, emerging and high-risk sectors such as shipping, oil and gas, deep-sea mining, large-scale aquaculture, and industrial fishing is currently inadequate to ensure sustainable outcomes and equitable sharing of benefits. There is also a lack of tailored governance frameworks to support benefit sharing and community engagement in a SBE. Ocean policies are described as “equity-blind”, with blue economy narratives, in particular, criticised for homogenising, de-peopling, and de-politicising the oceans ( Österblom et al., 2020 ; Bennett et al., 2021 ). In their comparative analysis of regional blue economies, Cisneros-Montemayor et al. (2021) , found equity, human rights and infrastructure to be the enabling conditions most lacking across regions.

As this review shows, communities have not been able to negotiate the processes and outcomes of the blue economy on an equal footing. Blue economy decision-making processes have failed to recognize and facilitate the effective and inclusive engagement of coastal communities, present and future. As our review highlights this is a result of structural inequalities, a lack of recognition for community knowledges, values, customary rights and small-scale practices, and difficulty engaging diverse and dispersed communities in decision-making processes that are not fit for purpose. Such inequalities become more pronounced when the other actors are powerful financial institutions, corporations and governments vying for political favour and competitive advantage in large EEZs and ABNJ with little regard for the downstream impacts on marine and coastal ecosystems and people. Inter-generational equity is particularly challenged by current narratives around blue growth.

Practical action can, however, be taken to address some of these key challenges. We propose four priority actions to advance a more inclusive SBE.

1. Co-developing a shared vision and language on the SBE : The discourses of the blue economy and sustainable blue economy have been dominated by multi-lateral actors such as the UN agencies, the European Commission, Commonwealth Secretariat and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development ( Childs and Hicks, 2019 ), as well as global NGOs, and blue economy policy and strategies are proliferating rapidly. Moving forward, it will be vital to include community representatives in co-developing regional, national and local SBE visions and plans, using a shared language that is accessible and can be deployed by governments, practitioners and communities alike. Developing plans at multiple levels will be better able to take into account the varied regional and local contexts that are so important to coastal communities and that shape their experiences of the blue economy.

2. Mainstreaming social justice principles: Mainstreaming recognition, procedural and distributive justice in decision-making for current and future generations is key to delivering an inclusive and equitable SBE ( Österblom et al., 2020 ). Bennett et al. (2021) , summarise key steps for advancing social justice, including: differentiating rights-holders and other stakeholders; acknowledging customary rights and tenure; building capacity for participation and co-management; respecting principles of free, prior and informed consent, and; providing fair compensation, mitigation and conflict management mechanisms. Implementing such solutions will require policy support, capacity building, access to sustainable and low-cost finance, and improved data and transparency ( UNDP, 2018 ; Sumaila et al., 2021 ). Partnerships with rights-based organisations and building capacity in rights-based advocacy will be key. It may also be important to concentrate SBE resources on particularly vulnerable groups and communities, for instance, women, young people, Indigenous groups and communities in SIDS and LDCs to mitigate past inequalities ( Sumaila et al., 2020 ; Gill et al., in press ).

3. Strengthening integrated governance across scales and sectors . There are three important aspects to the governance of an inclusive SBE. First, existing governance mechanisms need to be effectively implemented. Many governance solutions are already in place–ranging from sectoral and inter-sectoral regulations, through to legislation designating rights to participation and legal redress, to principles for sustainable and ethical investment–but they are not sufficiently implemented, enforced and monitored ( Sumaila et al., 2020 ; UNEP, 2021 ). Second, integrated governance is needed to strengthen and fill gaps in existing regulation and, importantly, to address the potential impacts and environmental and social implications of new and emerging sectors ( UNEP FI, 2022 ). Strategies to integrate ministries, strategies and approaches will be critical to ensuring that equity and sustainability remain primary objectives of key decision makers as well as offering necessary efficiencies ( Govan, 2017 ). Third, specific policy and institutions are required to more comprehensively protect the rights of coastal communities to a healthy environment, to food, nutrition and health, and to participation and inclusive decision-making, among other rights ( Jouffray et al., 2020 ; Österblom et al., 2020 ). To date, even examples of new and relatively progressive policy and legislation, for instance, regional management of fisheries by the Pacific Island States, highlight the continued imbalances in negotiating power and how benefits from the blue economy are distributed ( Govan, 2017 ). Furthermore, an important task of sustainable blue economy governance will be to recognise and manage tensions and potential trade-offs among multiple and equally important environmental, economic and social objectives such as marine protected areas, marine renewables, small-scale fisheries livelihoods, sustainable aquaculture, and food and nutritional security–not all of which may be able to be reconciled.

4. Bridging different scales of action and opportunity : There is notable under-investment by the public and private sector in sustainability ( Österblom et al., 2020 ; Sumaila et al., 2020 ) and in marine resource-dependent coastal communities. Knowledge of and access to available finance can be limited for the countries and communities that need it most ( UNDP, 2018 ; Okafor-Yarwood et al., 2020 ). For an inclusive SBE, it will be critical to develop mechanisms and approaches that support the flow of sustainable finance and other resources and opportunities to the community level, to support their sustainable development ambitions and needs, as well as their role as stewards of coastal ecosystems. Voyer et al. (2021) , highlight the importance of innovative financing linking community and civil society expectations with private and public sector investment, giving the recent example of the Global Fund for Coral Reefs 8 ; a finance initiative which could foster a blue COVID-19 recovery. Opening up coastal communities' access to environmentally appropriate technology solutions, sustainable infrastructure, education and skills training, and knowledge and research processes, as advocated by SDG 17, will also be integral to more equitable development of the sustainable blue economy ( UNEP, 2021 ; Voyer et al., 2021 ). Equitable partnerships across scales, stakeholders and sectors are fundamental ( UNDP, 2018 ; Okafor-Yarwood et al., 2020 ).

5. Conclusion

To conclude, our review reiterates that coastal communities are facing an uncertain future. Whilst coastal ecosystems can offer substantive goods and services that support their societal needs, these ecosystems are under severe threat from over-exploitation and direct destruction due to escalating coastal development, pollution and climate-related impacts. Trillions of dollars of public and private sector finance is expected to be targeted at coastal development over this decade which, alongside COVID-19 stimulus finance, could further exacerbate the biodiversity crisis and negatively impact coastal communities if not directed towards sustainable development pathways.

Equity is a prime issue when considering how such large-scale coastal development is affecting coastal communities. Communities have the right to sustain their way of life and develop in ways that support their future aspirations and underpin their environmental, social and economic resilience. They also have a distinctive and critical role to play as stewards of our coastal ecosystems, and whilst many self-organise around community-based conservation, locally managed marine areas or other governance structures to fulfil this role, our review shows that they face significant barriers in accessing income or finance to support key functions relating to restoration and protection and to take up other opportunities from a SBE. Importantly, many coastal communities are also themselves developing in ways that don't always serve their long-term needs. Modern approaches to small-scale fishing and increasing access to domestic and international markets, as well as increasing population sizes and limitations on available income and food sources due to degraded ecosystems, are all placing additional pressures on diminishing ecosystem goods and services.

Business-as-usual is a lose-lose situation for all–developers, maritime sectors, financiers and dependent coastal communities. It is crucial that the transition to a sustainable blue economy is delivered at all levels–ensuring that coastal communities are empowered to develop in ways that secure their long-term needs without negatively affecting the natural ecosystems on which they depend. They also need to be supported in their role as environmental stewards of coastal ecosystems, through free, prior and informed consent and recognition of their customary rights, territories and practices.

This paper has outlined the risks associated with current business-as-usual practices to coastal ecosystems and the communities dependent upon them and how the voice and actions of communities might be better included into sustainable blue economy strategies, planning approaches, and decision-making, in order to deliver a more equitable and sustainable development trajectory within the blue economy.

Author contributions

MH and LH commissioned the review. LE, PB, and MF designed and conducted the review and wrote the first draft of the paper. All authors contributed to editing and refining key messages.

This research was funded by WWF.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpos.2022.1032204/full#supplementary-material

1. ^ https://oceanpanel.org/the-agenda/ocean-equity/

2. ^ https://live-oceanpanel-wp.pantheonsite.io/sustainable-and-equitable-blue-recovery-COVID-19-crisis/

3. ^ https://coopesolidar.org

4. ^ https://www.unepfi.org/blue-finance/the-principles/

5. ^ https://www.cgiar.org/news-events/event/illuminating-hidden-harvests-ihh-a-snapshot-of-key-findings-webinar/

6. ^ http://toobigtoignore.net

7. ^ https://www.arctic-council.org/projects/

8. ^ https://www.undp.org/press-releases/new-un-multi-partner-trust-fund-coral-reefs

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Keywords: blue economy, coastal communities, justice, sustainability, marine

Citation: Evans LS, Buchan PM, Fortnam M, Honig M and Heaps L (2023) Putting coastal communities at the center of a sustainable blue economy: A review of risks, opportunities, and strategies. Front. Polit. Sci. 4:1032204. doi: 10.3389/fpos.2022.1032204

Received: 30 August 2022; Accepted: 23 December 2022; Published: 14 February 2023.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2023 Evans, Buchan, Fortnam, Honig and Heaps. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Louisa S. Evans, Louisa.evans@exeter.ac.uk

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Impact of blue economy factors on economic growth in the SAARC countries

Maritime Business Review

ISSN : 2397-3757

Article publication date: 2 September 2020

Issue publication date: 4 November 2020

This study aims to examine the influence of the blue economy factors on the economic growth of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries.

Design/methodology/approach

Secondary data from 1995 to 2018 have been used for the analysis of eight countries. The contributing factors that measure the fishing production are total aquaculture production, total fisheries production and agriculture, forestry and fishing. Trade and the rate of inflation are used as control variables. Using the feasible generalized least square technique.

It was found that the blue economy factors play a statistically significant role in the economic growth of SAARC countries and contribute to the achievement of Goal 14 of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals: to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.

Originality/value

This study highlights the fact that proper management and utilization of water resources may assist the stimulation of economic growth and meet the challenges of food insecurity by improving the supply of seafood in developing South Asian countries. The study proposes that the sustainable management of water resources requires an alliance across nation states. The alliance will be useful in understanding the concept of the blue economy and the role it plays in ensuring economic growth in developing nations throughout the world.

• Aquaculture and fishing
• Blue economy
• Economic growth
• Fishing production
• Gross domestic product

Alharthi, M. and Hanif, I. (2020), "Impact of blue economy factors on economic growth in the SAARC countries", Maritime Business Review , Vol. 5 No. 3, pp. 253-269. https://doi.org/10.1108/MABR-01-2020-0006

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Pacific Star Group Education Foundation.

1. Introduction

The European commission defines the blue economy as “all economic activities related to oceans, seas and coasts. It covers a wide range of interlinked established and emerging sectors”. ( European Union, 2018 ). The world’s oceans, coastal areas and seas are the largest ecosystems on the planet, with the oceans covering two-thirds of the planet’s surface. These ecosystems are vital for both planetary and human health. Oceans not only help buffer the effects of climatic changes but also provide habitats for millions of species and food for more than one billion people ( Parletta, 2019 ). Oceans are also vital to the economic prosperity of most countries. Despite the fact that oceans are a precious aspect of our natural heritage, only 7% of the planet’s oceans have been explored ( Toropova et al. , 2010 ). In the context of global megatrends such as migration to coastal cities, population growth, energy demands and climate change, the relationship between humanity and the oceans is becoming more complex. Given the rapid pace of urbanization, climate change, population growth and other land-based issues, the focus of global policy discussions is shifting gradually toward the world’s blue resources. If these resources are managed sustainably, they will have positive economic and environmental implications ( Singh, 2019 ). The blue economy, despite being an emerging concept, has already become a priority for the European Union and for the development agenda of Africa and efforts are being made to bring other regions on board to strengthen and better manage the blue economy within and across continents. Promoting and strengthening the blue economy holds immense promise for South Asia, which is a hub of world trade. However, the region is also faced with a multitude of socio-economic challenges. In this context, a blue economy offers a pathway to addressing some of these challenges. The South Asian region holds special social, economic and political importance as one of the most populated areas in the world ( Bose and Jalal, 2017 ). The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation countries (SAARC) countries – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives – have a combined population of approximately 1.9 billion ( World Bank, 2019 ). South Asia is one of the largest and poorest regions in the world. In spite of its extensive human and natural resources, the region is underdeveloped ( Jayawardena et al. , 2013 ), the quality of life is poor and the infant death rate is very high ( Khan, 2005 ).

This study represents an attempt to highlight the trajectory from the blue economy to economic growth for the South Asian countries under consideration. The first and foremost indicator of the growth of any economy is its gross domestic product (GDP) ( Henderson et al. , 2011 ; Wong et al. , 2005 ). GDP is the sum of the gross value of all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes ( Murry and Nan, 1994 ) and GDP per capita is a country’s GDP divided by the population of that country ( Hoshino, 2011 ). GDP per capita provides insight into how much is being spent on each person in a particular country and is used to calculate the performance of that country’s economy [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development ( OECD, 2017 )]. According to the World Bank (2019) , the GDP per capita of South Asia was $1,907 in 2018, which is only marginally higher than that of African countries. South Asian countries are densely populated. India and Pakistan have large populations and Pakistan’s income distribution is excessively unbalanced. The middle class of society is shrinking constantly, with the poor becoming poorer and the rich becoming richer.

The South Asian region is progressing slowly and steadily. In addition, the estimated GDP growth of South Asian countries dropped by 1.1% in 2019 compared to the previous year ( World Bank, 2019 ). According to policymakers, the maximum retrieval could be up to 6.3% for 2020 and 6.7% for 2021. Only two South Asian nations, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, have healthy GDPs per capita ( World Bank, 2019 ). Both countries are investing in the tourism industry and implementing strategies to manage income distribution. These strategies are paying off. Table 1 provides the actual and expected GDP growth for South Asian countries.

The GDP growth of Afghanistan is forecasted to improve because of improvements in the country’s cultivation practices. However, this is dependent on political circumstances and the stability of the region. Comparatively, the GDP growth of Bangladesh is forecast to decrease by 7.3% due to the uncertainty and fragility of the financial sector. Nevertheless, Bangladesh may be able to keep the growth rate above 7% with the help of increased government spending and stable political conditions. GDP growth in India is predicted to fall to 6% this fiscal year due to an extended downturn in the first quarter of 2020. It is forecast to be 6.9% in the fiscal year 2020. In the Maldives, GDP growth was 5.2% at the end of 2019 because of the development of Maldives International Airport. Nevertheless, with the help of increased financing and tourism, the GDP of the Maldives may rise to 5.6% over the projected years. The forecast GDP growth of Nepal is approximately 6.5%, supported by increased employment and developmental work. Pakistan’s GDP is expected to decrease by 3.3% in 2020. However, its contract with the International Monetary Fund is expected to help revive its economy.

Coasts and seas are the most gainful biological systems on earth and represent effective resources that can strengthen financial and economic development ( Voyer and van Leeuwen, 2019 ). Climate guidelines, shoreline adjustments, carbon sequestration, fisheries, hydroelectric energy, wind energy, ocean-based oil and gas resources and the travel industry all contribute between $3tn and $5tn annually ( Everest-Phillips, 2014 ). Thus, improvement in the blue economy can positively affect a country’s economic growth, if looked after effectively ( Eikeset et al. , 2018 ). Scholars and international organizations believe that the blue economy is sustained by three elements, namely, the development of the marine economy ( Behnam, 2012 ), the innovative development of the economy ( Pauli, 2010 ) and coping with the global water crisis ( McGlade et al. , 2012 ). Fortunately, many organizations, communities and governments are becoming aware of the need for a more coherent, integrated, fair and scientific approach to the management of the economic development of the oceans ( Smith-Godfrey, 2016 ). Moreover, humanity increasingly understands that it is an integral part of the oceans and ecosystems and must accordingly plan and implement its economic activities with care, balancing the desire to improve human living standards and sustain a healthy marine ecosystem.

The convergence of the blue economy and the marine ecosystem means that ecosystem accounting is closely linked to economic growth ( Lillebø et al. , 2017 ). Mulazzani et al. (2016) presented the ecosystem service management framework to address coastal economic growth. Kathijotes (2013) argued that the principal aim of the blue economy model is to tackle the issues that cause environmental problems and shift resources from scarcity to abundance. Van-den-Burg et al. (2019) proposed possible boundaries for the growth of the marine industry. According to Soma et al. (2018) and Keen et al. (2018) , economic growth can be achieved through inclusion, collaboration and trust. In a similar study, Sarker et al. (2018) emphasized the development of a management framework of blue growth that should promote the blue economy and ensure economic development. Howard (2018) presented an in-depth discussion of the role of stakeholders in economic development.

How does the blue economy contribute to the economic growth of South Asian countries?

The remainder of the study is organized as follows:

Section 2 provides a rigorous literature review of the blue economy and economic growth. Section 3 provides a detailed overview of the study’s methodology. Section 4 presents the results and discussion. Section 5 presents the conclusion.

2. Literature review

In the South Asian region, no data have been released on monetary and social estimations of ocean-based businesses and no evaluation has been provided yet that can be calculated in accordance with the concept of the blue economy ( Forbes, 1995 ). The absence of accessible data confines the expectations of related enterprises and this complicates the true assessment of those enterprises in the economic progress at country level. The ocean economy consists of a wide range of resources and assets that have contributed to the development of the world economy. A rough computation indicates that the blue economy is contributing between 3–5% to global GDP ( Patil et al. , 2016 ). India shares a coastal border with six countries, thus providing ample opportunities to harness marine water resources for economic growth through ocean development, export–import trading and the use of natural minerals and energy resources to satisfy domestic needs ( Llewellyn et al. , 2016 ). By ensuring a strong and sustainable framework of ocean development, India has the potential to succeed socio-economically. Many South Asian countries border the Bay of Bengal. It has India to its west, northwest and east; Myanmar to its east; Sri Lanka to its southwest; and Indonesia to its southeast ( Ghani, 2011 ). This can create many opportunities for the blue economy to grow, and these states can use the available resources and assets in their respective marine areas. The blue economy is now being recognized around the world, with the Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and the region of Southern Africa acknowledging its importance. Coastal states reserve the right to investigate and use the assets of their coastal areas.

Fish and fisheries contribute hugely to the livelihoods of individuals in coastal areas. The fisheries in the South Asia region augment livelihoods by 5–8%. In South Asia, the Bay of Bengal is an important resource: India receives approximately half of the fish it produces (1.2 million tons annually) and Myanmar receives approximately 1.1 million tons annually ( Funge-Smith et al. , 2012 ). In contrast to India and Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives receive annually 0.6 million tons, 0.12 million tons and 0.16 million tons, respectively ( Krishnamurthy et al. , 2018 ). To ensure quality standards are met, handling and safeguarding processes need to be conducted properly and effectively ( Bari, 2017 ). Legitimate handling and safeguarding can improve the nature of supply, which results in higher GDPs.

Maritime transport manages 80% of the worldwide product exchange volume and shipped 10 billion tons in 2015. Rejecting old and unusable boats is an absolute necessity to ensure that ocean-borne businesses can succeed and liberate the global network. Transportation is the scaffold on which extensive world development is based. The coastlines of five South Asian countries (India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the Maldives) represent less than 2% of the world’s total coastline. Coastal areas are responsible for 40% of business in these countries’ respective locales and represent the greater part of their basic financial foundation. South Asia’s waterfront districts are exceptionally wealthy. The coastal travel industry in the area has grown by 8% annually. In 2014, India received the highest number of tourists in the region and Bangladesh received the lowest number ( Alam, 2016 ).

The Changwon Declaration in 2012 placed great emphasis on an ocean-based blue economy and the importance of finding strategies to develop East Asian seas (EAS) ( Asia, 2012 ). In 2014, the Xiamen Declaration also became an important pillar for advocates and allowed them to find new ways to develop cooperation in the region ( Stuenkel, 2017 ). During the 2012 East Asian Seas Congress, the concept of an ocean-based economy was presented ( EAS Congress, 2012 ). The focus was on incorporating environmentally-friendly technology with infrastructure to ensure sustainable development. Institutional changes and policies were also discussed, with the ultimate objective of ensuring sustainable development and protecting coastal areas, the environment, resources and marine ecosystems. The blue economy and its complex relationship with economic growth are usually misunderstood and need clarification ( Ayres and Warr, 2010 ). Other interconnected activities that use ocean-based resources include marine biotechnology and the processing of seafood and salt ( Smith-Godfrey, 2016 ). In addition, the blue economy refers to activities related to ship and boat building and repairing, marine tourism and the creation of maritime laws and services. The blue economy also encompasses activities such as marine research and development ( Eikeset et al. , 2018 ). Moreover, it comprises all the relevant sectors that deal with the ocean, including coast guards and the defense forces.

This broader picture of the blue economy gives us insight into the concept as a whole and its importance. As no country wants to waste potential growth opportunities, the blue economy is an important concept for countries with coastal regions. Understanding this importance, the Seychelles and the United Arab Emirates came together and organized a summit in Abu Dhabi in 2014 called the Abu Dhabi Declaration, which emphasized the importance of adapting to and coping with climate change, marine environment preservation and systems related to the blue economy ( Small Island Developing States, 2014 ). The model of the blue economy has gained ground amongst not only the leading nations of the world but also the developing nations. African nations and the SIDS are looking to find opportunities within the blue economy ( Ngawi, 2014 ; Hanif , 2017, 2018a, 2018b ). South Asian nations have relied historically on activities such as fishing and because of their proximity to the Indian Ocean, they have extensive opportunities and huge potential to grow their blue economy. However, without the systems in place to properly organize and implement the blue economy, reaching the potential it offers is highly unlikely.

Fishing is a known livelihood of people in coastal areas. In recent times, fish consumption has surged and demand for fish has grown rapidly. From 1985 to 1997, per capita fish consumption in India increased by 4.3%. Over this period, other South Asian countries also saw an increase in fish consumption, by approximately 3.3%. As then, fish consumption has only increased ( Delgado et al. , 2003 ). Aquaculture is a sector that is growing at a substantial rate. It provides solutions to problems such as resource abuse and resource depletion while also providing employment opportunities. South Asia has witnessed dramatic growth trends in the fisheries’ sector in comparison to other regions ( Funge-Smith et al. , 2012 ).

Some countries such as Sri Lanka and the Maldives, have extensive coastal areas, thus meaning that there have more growth opportunities through marine resources. These countries are looking for opportunities to invest in and boost their economies. According to the UN Resolutions, countries with coastal regions have the right to exploit whichever opportunities they can avail of in the ocean, including mining and fishing (United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea [UNCLOS] Article 56). Another UN article gives countries with coastlines the right to mine or explore the sea and use its resources (UNCLOS Article 77). Almost all of the world’s countries that have coastlines are launching campaigns requesting to extend their continental limits to exploit more resources. This proves that countries have understood the potential of the blue economy and that the situation is expected to improve in the near future. One theory is to put mechanisms in place to share the exploited resources with landlocked countries. This will give equal opportunities to all nations in relation to the blue economy ( Schoolmeester et al. , 2009 ). The importance of the development of the blue economy in China has been emphasized by researchers due to the significant contribution that maritime industries make to the Chinese economy. Zhao et al. (2014) and Colgan and Judith (2013) have estimated that ocean-related industries in China have contributed approximately US$240bn to the economy. The blue economy of China uses more than nine million people and Jiang et al. (2014) found that the contribution of the Chinese marine economy to the national economy increased from 6.46% to 13.83% in 2000–2011.

Total fisheries production (TFP) has a positive significant influence on economic growth.

Aquaculture production (ACP) has a positive significant influence on economic growth.

AFF have a positive significant influence on economic growth.

Thus, the findings of present study could be interesting in formulating an effective policy design to improve the role of the blue economy in the economic growth of SAARC countries.

3. Research methodology

Data sources: The study has taken into account annual data from World Development Indicators published by the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization and National Accounts from the OECD. The data collected for the study comprise a panel of SAARC countries (Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Maldives) from 1995–2018.

Methodology: A general multiple regression model was designed to test the relationships between economic growth and blue economy determinants (ACP; AFF; AFF), along with additional control variables (trade and inflation). The research framework is depicted in Figure 1 .

In the Solow model of economic growth ( Solow, 1956 ), capital stock (K) increases as part of the output is saved and invested, but it decreases by depreciation. As a result, this study follows the simple form of the Solow Growth Model ( Cheung and Yip, 2011 : Hanif and Gago-de Santos, 2017 ). The functional form of our model can be written as follows: (1) G r o w t h = f L a b o r , C a p i t a l The extended version of the model can be written as follows: (2) G r o w t h = f L a b o r , C a p i t a l , B l u e E c o n o m y , Z Here, (3) B l u e E c o n o m y = f ( F P , A P , A F F ) And (4) Z = f T R D , I N F Here we further disaggregate the blue economy (TFP, ACP and AFF) and Z (that denotes to a group of control variables as trade and inflation). The econometric form of the proposed model can be given as follows: (5) L o g G W i , t = α i , t + β 1 L o g L i , t + β 2 L o g K i , t + γ 1 L o g F P i , t + γ 2 L o g A P i , t + γ 3 A F F i , t + θ 1 T R D i , t + θ 2 I N F i , t + u i , t where log = Normal logarithm , GW = Gross domestic product α= Constant , L = Labour , K = Capital , FP = Total Fisheries production , AP = Aquaculture production , Aquaculture forest and fishing , TRD = Trade , INF = Inflation , u = Error term , i = Country , t = year .

Here, it is important to mention that in equation (5) we used normal logarithm ( Log ) because the log transformation also helps to reduce the problems such as multicollinearity ( Asteriou and Hall, 2015 ). The use of logs will be for when we want to measure elasticities and a good use of this may be estimating the effect of a 1% increase in independent variable on the percent change in the dependent variable. Technically, taking natural log (ln) of a rate may be problematic at technical grounds. There are two basic reasons not to choose natural log. Firstly, on theoretical ground one may want to linearize the non-linear relation yet for rates it seems not true. Second reason is statistical when observations are unevenly distributed that is to say from a “normal” perspective: asymmetric, with most observations on one side of the mean and a few outliers on the other side. However, in both cases, taking the log of the variable gives a better shape in terms of normal distribution (symmetry as coincidence of mean and median, variance, etc.). In short, the log transformation helps to examine the impact of independent variables (which are measured in different units) on dependent variable to examine changes in percentage, rather than unit changes ( Hanif et al. , 2018a, 2018b, 2019 ). Therefore, the use of logs is great for when we have a marginal effect that is changing in size in units - or put differently, particularly the economic effect of independent variable on dependent variable is somehow related to percent changes, rather than unit changes.

3.1 List of variables

Gross Domestic Product (GW) in United States dollars (USD): GDP is the sum of the gross value added by all resident producers in an economy, plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies that are not included in the value of the products. It is calculated without making deductions for either the depreciation of fabricated assets or the depletion and/or degradation of natural resources. Data are in current USD. Dollar figures for GDP are converted from domestic currencies into US$ using official exchange rates. An alternative conversion factor is used for some countries where the official exchange rate does not reflect the effective rate applied to actual foreign-exchange transactions.

Total Fishery Production (FP) in metric tonnes: Total fisheries’ production (measured in metric tons) measures the volume of aquatic species caught by a country for all commercial, industrial, recreational and subsistence purposes. The harvests from mariculture, aquaculture and other kinds of fish farming are also included.

Aquaculture production (AP) in metric tonnes: Aquaculture (measured in metric tons) is farming for consumable production of aquatic life, including fish, molluscs, crustaceans and aquatic plants.

Agriculture, forestry and fishing (AFF) as percent of GDP: Agriculture corresponds to International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) divisions 1–5 and includes forestry, hunting and fishing, as well as the cultivation of crops and livestock production. Value added is the net output of a sector after adding up all the outputs and subtracting the intermediate inputs. It is calculated without making deductions for the depreciation of fabricated assets or the depletion and/or degradation of natural resources. The origin of value added is determined by ISIC.

Labour (L) in millions: The annual labor force (measured in millions) is used to measure the impact of the labor force on the GDP of developing South Asian countries.

Capital (K) in USD: The annual rate of gross fixed capital formation in million US$ is used to examine the influence of capital growth on the GDP in the developing Asian countries.

Inflation rate (INF), consumer index price (CPI) as a percentage: Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, reflects the annual percentage change in cost to the average consumer when acquiring goods and services that may be either fixed or changed at specified intervals (e.g. annually).

Trade (TRD) as percent of GDP: Trade is the sum of exports and imports of goods and services measured as a percentage of GDP.

4. Results estimation

Table 2 provides the descriptive statistics of the variables used to conduct the study. It includes a measure of central tendency (mean) and a measure of variation (standard deviation), along with the variables and the minimum and maximum values.

The mean value of the log of GDP is 24.18. Independent variables such as the log of ACP, have a mean value of 10.03; TFP has a mean value of 11.45; AFF has a mean value of 22.51; INF has a mean value of 6.99; and TRA has a mean value of 56.03. A total of 147 observations were used for the study.

Test for multi-collinearity: A correlation analysis was used to measure the strength and direction of the association between two variables and examine multi-collinearity in the data series. The results of the correlation matrix are provided in Table 3 .

Thus, the results of the correlation matrix show that there is no multi-collinearity in the variables.

Moreover, the study used a pooled ordinary least square (OLS) regression model to examine the role that the blue economy plays in the economic growth of South Asian countries. In the pooled OLS regression, we pooled all of the observations together and ran the regression model, neglecting the cross-section and time-series nature of the data. This is a maximum-likelihood solution that is easy to understand, is one of the best unbiased linear estimators and is more powerful than other regression techniques if Gauss–Markov assumptions are met. The results of the Gauss–Markov assumptions ’ test are given in Table 4 . The key estimation issues for a panel data analysis are usually data normality, serial correlation and heteroscedasticity. Another major issue with this model is that it does not distinguish between the different countries.

The data were found to violate many of the Gauss–Markov assumptions. As such, fixed-effect and random-effect models were applied, and the results are provided in Table 6 . The fixed-effect model allows for either heterogeneity or individuality among the selected group of countries by allowing the intercept value. The fixed term effect is due to the fact that although the intercept value may differ across countries, it does not vary over time (i.e. it is time-invariant). However, the selected countries have a common mean value for the intercept value in the random effect model. To examine the reliability of the results, various diagnostic tests were applied in this study, the outcomes of which are provided in Table 5 .

Table 5 shows that the Hausman test was used to check whether a fixed effect or a random effect model is suitable for estimation of results. As the p -value of the Hausman test is greater than 0.05, the random effect model is more efficient and is used to explain the outcome.

Testing for serial correlation and cross-sectional dependence is also essential when examining the reliability of the results. Driscoll and Kraay (1998) stated that serial correlation and cross-sectional dependence have long been recognized as potential problems for panel data. Thus, the Wooldridge test was used for serial correlation in the panel data to determine whether the serial correlation issue was resolved. From Table 5 , it is evident that the p -value is less than the 0.05 level of significance ( F (1, 7) = 322.38, p < 0.000). Thus, we do not accept the null hypothesis and conclude that the data do have a first-order autocorrelation. The cross-sectional dependence was measured using the Breusch–Pagan LM test of independence, which showed that there is cross-sectional dependence across entities, χ 2 (7) = 27.962, p -value = 0.0061.

The Breusch–Pagan LM test was used to check, which model (the random effect model or the pooled OLS regression model) was suitable. As the χ 2 probability value is below the 0.05 level of significance, we accept the alternative hypothesis and conclude that there is evidence of significant differences across countries, meaning that we are unable to run a pooled OLS regression model.

Moreover, Parks (1967) proposed a feasible generalized least square (FGLS) estimator in an attempt to account for heteroscedasticity and temporal and spatial dependence in the residuals of panel models. The FGLS method is typically appropriate for econometric panels if the panel’s time dimension “ T ” is greater than is its cross-sectional dimension “ N ”, which is almost always the case for macro-economic variables in panel data. Table 6 shows the results based on FGLS estimates.

The results in Table 6 show that fisheries’ production has a positive and statistically significant impact on the economic growth of SAARC countries. The results of the FGLS show that if all other factors are constant, then a 1% increase in fisheries’ production improves economic growth by approximately 0.12%. The results highlight that fisheries’ production may prove helpful in promoting economic growth by improving livelihood opportunities and food security and alleviating poverty in developing economies. The results showed that fishery is an important sector of SAARC countries’ food production. Fisheries sector working as engine of economic growth and annual world-wide trade valium is about US$171bn, whereas the portion of SAARC counties is about US$6.5bn, which is only 3.8% of the total contribution. Although the results show a significant role of fishery in economic growth, there is still need to promote trade unions and cooperation for the promotion of fisheries sector. Moreover, the results of this study are consistent with the studies by Funge-Smith et al. (2012) . The results also show that a 1% increase in aquaculture is promoting economic growth by approximately 0.37% if all other factors are considered constant. The results highlight that SAARC countries have a potential to use aquaculture as an engine of economic growth. More importantly, SAARC countries with respect to geographic location are located in such an area with immense opportunities and possibilities for the development of aquaculture. Thus, regional cooperation on mutual interest like promotion of aquaculture and fisheries may improve the livelihood of millions of individuals and also help to accelerate economic growth to optimal level in the region. The findings also reveal that AFF are important factors that improve economic growth. According to the results of the Pooled OLS, Fixed Effect and Random Effect, in SAARC countries, an improvement of approximately one unit may increase economic growth by approximately 0.051%, 0.066% and 0.067% respectively, if all other factors are considered constant. However, the result based on FGLS shows a negative relationship with economic growth, the change in sign from positive to negative indicates the presence of heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation. This indicate that the desirable properties of FGLS can only be shown to hold asymptotically when hypothesis testing based on normal distribution rather than its small sample counterparts. Thus, a change in sign of agriculture, forestry and fishing variable while remaining highly significant indicates the issue of serial correlation in the model. More importantly, the results of the pooled OLS, the fixed and random effect models are consistent and show the significant and positive impact of AFF on economic growth.

In short, the results of this study accept the null hypotheses H1 , H2 and H3 and confirm the significant role of the blue economy in improving economic growth in SAARC economies. The results support the findings of Ayres and Warr (2010) , Ngawi (2014) , Smith-Godfrey (2016) , Patil et al. (2016) , Stuenkel (2017) . The findings also highlight how the proper management and utilization of the oceans’ resources helps to promote economic growth and address challenges of food insecurity by improving the provision of food in developing South Asian countries. Moreover, this study highlights the promotion of various areas of the blue economy that could help meet Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14. However, a joint effort is required to assess each sector of the blue economy and decide, based on each sector’s priorities and circumstances, which ones to prioritize. This prioritization will promote the role of different sectors of the blue economy, thus fostering economic growth.

The results show that both labor and capital play significant and positive roles in the promotion of economic growth in developing South Asian countries. However, a negative and statistically insignificant relationship was found between inflation and economic growth. This is similar to the findings of Mario and Josipa (2017) , Khan and Senhadji (2002) and Andrés and Hernando (1997) , who also found a weak and negative correlation between inflation and economic growth. It was also found that trade has a significant and positive effect on economic growth – a finding that is similar to studies by Rassekh (2007) , Rigobon and Rodrik (2005) and Vamvakidis (2002), who also found a positive relationship between trade and economic growth. The FGLS model has an F -statistic of approximately 232.25 ( p = 0.000), which indicates that the estimated model is best fit. Overall, the study data are highly consistent due to greater values of R 2 (0.844, 0.879 and 0.879). In comparison, the pooled OLS model indicates the highest consistency (0.844) compared to the fixed and random effect models (0.879).

5. Conclusion

A blue economy can contribute significantly to the growth of an economy if a country’s blue resources are mapped and integrated properly within a strong institutional framework and based on concrete policies and research. Thus, there is potential for infrastructural growth. This will also generate employment and help eradicate poverty through the social inclusion of the inhabitants of coastal regions. This study concludes that SAARC countries have the potential to implement a blue economy that will lead to economic growth in the region, but it requires strong political commitments, concrete research, societal awareness and positive attitudes. Thus, if SAARC countries make proper use of their resources, they will experience a faster rate of progress. In short, this study infers that South Asia in general has both the possibility and scope to execute the concept of the blue economy. However, solid political responsibilities, in-depth examinations, cultural mindfulness and a positive frame of mind to upgrade the reliance on blue economy are required to ensure long-term success. The sustainable management of ocean resources requires collaboration across nation-states, and this will be helpful in understanding the concept of the blue economy and its importance in promoting economic growth, meeting SDG 14 and improving the livelihoods of people by ensuring food security.

Research framework

Real GDP growth in South Asia