g., under mussel farming and seaweed cultivation) with the existing offshore parks, Langhamer discusses how further research work may strengthen planning applications for future developments, based also on the cooperation of different MREIs, collecting environmental data using a Before-and-After-Control-Impact design, option that may significantly accelerate application processes and reduce the need to repeat studies.Adaptive management is becoming a diffuse framework of choice for environmental management. Whether active (i.e., based on deliberate experimentation with alternative environmental management approaches whose impact is evaluated) or passive (based on a single management approach for which the impact is predicted and then monitored), the updating of the conceptual understanding of the impacts and the response of the natural systems to management interventions offer the opportunity to shape the management schemes (and in the monitoring itself) to what is suggested by evidences brought by the initial monitoring.

In their paper ��An adaptive framework for selecting environmental monitoring protocols to support ocean renewable energy development,�� E. J. Shumchenia et al. discuss an adaptive framework based on indicators of the likely changes to the marine ecosystems due to MREIs and develop decision trees to identify impacts, at both the demonstration and commercial scales, as function of type of energy (e.g. wind, tidal, or wave), structure (e.g., turbine), and foundation type (e.g., monopole). In their study, impacts are categorized by ecosystem component (i.e.

, benthic species, fish, birds, marine mammals, and sea turtles) and monitoring objectives are developed for each. In consideration of the poor knowledge about the baseline natural variability of the environmental indicators and the difficulties of separating impacts from the noise of the seasonal or interannual environmental variability, these authors propose an adaptive monitoring framework, as alternative to the more diffuse ��static�� type, since it might benefit from the progress in the knowledge acquisition and improved understanding of the impacts on marine resources deriving from the initial monitoring activity, which may, on its turn, greatly change the case specific monitoring needs and/or requirements.

All the papers in this issue are intended to advance more strategic and integrative thinking on how to apply an ecosystem-based spatial planning approach to better Entinostat manage the integration of the MRE sector development into the existing framework of human sea uses. The growing concern over the threat of global climate change and the other environmental impacts of the worldwide reliance on fossil fuels have amplified the interest on renewable energies and drawn the attention on the immense stores of energy in the ocean [5].