Overview of legal framework and territorial planning process for coastal zone management

This Master Thesis “Overview of legal framework and territorial planning process for costalzone management” was done in the Master’s Programme in Sustainable Technology at theRoyal Institute of Technology.Cities in coastal areas and islands in particular have a special interest due to the particular rolethey may acquire as growth poles and gates to their hinterland in a broader process of spatial integration but also as centers of growing economic activities such as tourism, transport andfishing. Furthermore, they are also important as areas, which face increasing pressures from amultitude of actors for development with diverse interests. As a consequence their planning should be seen in the context of broader spatial strategies.Planning is an important tool for the integrated coastal zone management, but in order to beeffective it should be accompanied with a variety of policy instruments, put in timely action,developed in a strategic manner with a long term vision and take into consideration the interconnections across spatial levels.The study focused on the legal framework and territorial planning legislations analysis and comparison between two countries in the Baltic Sea region: Sweden and Lithuania. The main attentions was paid for the coastal zone management framework as they are on the increasing pressure through anthropogenic activities, such as building of new roads, hotels, private summer houses and so on. In this case, the study analyzes two harbors – relocation ofLoudden Port in Stockholm, Sweden and expansion of Klaipeda State Seaport in Klaipeda,Lithuania. In both cases the situation is complicated and involves social, economical, cultural aspects.Many different stakeholders with different interest are involved in planning process. It was overviewed the obstacles and the legislations failings concerning territorial planning andpublic participation in it, because despite big efforts to improve the integrated coastal zonemanagement, still exist barriers such as bureaucratic inertia, opposition to changes, conflicts coming from multiple interests, overlapping of local, regional and national competencies anddifficulties of cooperation among different bodies.The Thesis work was also concentrated on public participation in territorial planning process.Both countries differ in cultural social, economical, historical aspects. Consequently, theplanning and participatory processes are different in each country. In order to reveal better the existing situation concerning Klaipeda State Seaport expansion, there were questioned different stakeholders involved in this process.www.ima.kth.s