Knowledge of ecosystem services (ES) and the benefits provided by offshore marine areas, including the welfare impacts from the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) is still limited. In the present study we evaluated benefits from ES, citizens’ willingness-to-pay for potential changes in the provision of ES, and welfare losses to citizens due to restrictions on economic activities from establishing new offshore MPAs in Latvian waters. The scenarios for the economic valuation were based on analysing the supply of ES from the protected marine habitats, showing changes in the ES supply in policy relevant scenarios of the MPA size. Our study evaluates a wide array of ES delivered by offshore protected habitats and reveals that citizens’ willingness-to-pay for preserving habitats and ES supply exceeds their welfare losses from restrictions in economic activities. Our approach supports the prioritisation of habitat types according to their contribution to ES supply and benefits for citizens. The analysis can be complemented with spatial data regarding distribution of habitats, providing an opportunity to identify areas with the highest ES benefits to support marine protection and spatial planning.

With the blue economic sectors growing, marine macroalgae cultivation plays an important role in securing food and energy supplies, as well as better water quality in sustainable ways, whether alone or as part of a cluster solution to mitigate the effects of fish farming. While macroalgae cultivation exists in Europe, it is not that widely distributed yet; with increasing marine activities at sea, Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) needs to ensure social recognition as well as social and spatial representation for such a new marine activity. This comparative case study analysis of MSPs of three eastern Baltic Sea countries explores the levels of support for the development of macroalgae cultivation in MSP and the degree of co-location options for this new and increasingly important sector. It presents new analytical ways of incorporating co-location considerations into the concept of social sustainability. The results of this study support the harmonisation of views on co-location, propose ways of using space to benefit multiple users as well as marine ecosystems, and highlight some of the key social challenges and enablers for this sector.