AquaSpace Case Study Adriatic Sea, Italy: Issues and Tools The research leading to these results has been undertaken as part of the AquaSpace project (Ecosystem Approach to making Space for Aquaculture, http://aquaspace-h2020.eu) and has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation under grant agreement n° 633476. Horizon 2020

Where? Italy is the third mussel producer in the EU (devo controllare) Italy is currently implementing MSP: tools for site selection are required

Shellfish culture is a relevant activity along the whole Italian Adriatic coast (about 79,000 tonnes/year, 89% of the national production) Spatial planning, up to now, has been carried out at a local level and licensing procedure can be different from place to place: we selected the Emilia-Romagna coast as a representative case study because it is the main producer (40,000 tonnes/year) and its administration is sensitive to spatial planning Saturation of the area within 3 nm Need to diversify the production The MSP directive has been implemented in the Italian legislation only recently, in November 2016. The planning process will be carried out under the coordination of national authorities, in collaboration with the ”Regioni”. The case study may represent an example of good practice and provide valuable tools for allocating new lease areas in other parts of Italy Case study ISSUES

Tool(s) used in the case study Spatial Multi-Criteria Evaluation Brigolin, D., Porporato, E. M. D., Prioli, G., and Pastres, R. 2017. Making space for shellfish farming along the Adriatic coast. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsx018.

Scenarios The analysis considered the reference situation and the 7 different scenarios summarized in Table. Each scenario resulted from a combination of aquaculture production, and weighting assignment (of Intermediate Level Criteria): 1) two productions were considered: i) only mussels; ii) mussels and oysters; 2) 4 priorities for intermediate level criteria. Figure shows the suitability index, SI, for the baseline scenario (current situation) taking into account the current distribution of shellfish farms. Interestingly, all the mussel farms currently in place, marked in blue, are located in zones characterized by relatively high suitability (average SI of pixels in which farms are located is > 0.65).

Scenarios PRIORITY PRODUCT Figure compares the SI under REF with the 7 explored scenarios of development of shellfish aquaculture industry in Emilia-Romagna. The SI maps produced under the different scenarios show slight differences, which can be further assessed by comparing the extension of the areas by suitability class. Suitable space (SI > 0.5) for developing the shellfish aquaculture industry reaches the lowest value under S8 (mussels & oysters; socio economic priority), which presents 488 km2, 59% of the total space, with SI below 0.5. On the other hand, S2 presents 38 km2, > 5% of the total space, ranked as highly suitable (SI > 0.75). With respect to ILC priority, higher SI scores are obtained when prioritizing OG, while SE scenarios present the lowest scores. Remarkable changes in the spatial patterns of SI are visible when changing the market (see Figure 4 S4 vs. S8).

Aquaspace tool The Aquaspace tool could lead to improve the results obtained thus far, by taking into account socio-economic criteria. The Aquaspace tool looks comprehensive, but we can not apply it to the case study as it ws developed using a licensed software: this may limit its use. It would be interesting to use it for testing a product diversification scenario,in which Pacific Oyster and Mediterranean mussel are farmed in the same leased area.

Stakeholder feedback and recommendations Chioggia meeting, Nov. 2015 Number of participants Shellfish farmer cooperatives 15 National Health Institute 1 Experimental Zootechnic Institute 13 University Research Institutes 7 ISPRA -Institute for Environmental Protection and Research 5 Regulators We presented the Aquaspace project, in the context of MSP implementation.

Stakeholder feedback and recommendations It takes too long to get new licenses: the licensing procedure should be simplified and standardized Identification of areas where aquaculture has a priority on other uses would be helpful Establishing a unique reference point for assisting farmers in complying with the current legislation concerning licensing, environmental monitoring and food safety (diseases.) Implement a platform for improving the communication between farmer/farmer associations and regulators, in order to improve participation in the process of implementation of MSP. We intend to present the final results of Aquaspace at another stakeholder meeting, to be held in November 2017, back to back to the annual conference of the Italian Society for research applied to shellfish farming (SIRAM)

Relevance to Aquaspace We feel that the this case study highlights the need of flexible tools concerning the estimation of potential biomass yield, to be integrated within more comprehensive planning instruments. Combining sat data and mechanistic models seems a promising approach for mapping shellfish productivity wherever large transport-reaction models are lacking Thus far, we have collected mainly farmer opinions: they basically ask for faster and more transparent licensing procedures and more interactions with regulators. It is not easy to have both farmers and regulators at public meeting. We will contact regulators one by one, throught interviews The results of this Aquaspace case study will be valorized in the Italian context: R. Pastres will coordinate a working group on spatial planning, within the Platform ”ITAQUA”, recently set up by the MiPAF ( Ministery of Agriculture and Forestry) for fostering the development of Italian aquaculture

Concluding remarks SMCE represents a useful and flexible framework for assessing site suitability for shellfish farming and promoting a science-based design of Allocated Zones for Aquaculture (AZAs) Further work should focus on the evaluation of additional factors, such as: disease exposure, positive farm-ecosystem interactions, climate change. We can see two ways of exploiting the methodology tested in Aquaspace: 1) producing a QGIS plug-in implementing the algorithm for the calculation of the suitability index, on the basis of information layers provided by a user; 2) providing to agencies involved in the implementation of MSP information layers concerning the potential productivity of an area, by combining remotely sensed data and mechanistic models.