Structuring social data for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive Eva-Lotta Sundblad n , Anders Grimvall, Lena Gipperth, Andrea Morf Swedish Institute for the Marine Environment, P.O. Box 260, SE-40530 Gothenburg, Sweden article info Article history: Received 23 May 2013 Received in revised form 30 October 2013 Accepted 4 November 2013 Available online 1 December 2013 Keywords: DPSIR BPSIR Social analysis Societal analysis Marine environment abstract The Marine Strategy Framework Directive, adopted by the EU, and several other initiatives to improve marine environmental management emphasize the need to integrate environmental and social analyses. This article proposes and tests a general Behavior-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (BPSIR) framework for identifying and structuring environmentally relevant social data. The framework is compatible with the widely applied Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework, but emphasizes actors and their behavior and defines ‘impact’ more specifically. In particular, it distinguishes between: (i) actors directly involved in activities causing physical, chemical, and biological disturbances, and (ii) actors who indirectly affect marine resource use and the pressures on marine ecosystems. Three case studies of chemical and biological disturbances in the Swedish parts of the North and Baltic seas demonstrate the need to balance current ecosystem monitoring with systematically collected and organized data on social factors, i.e., both direct and indirect actors and stakeholders, their adaptation to policy measures, and the role of general trends in consumption and production. & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The most crucial environmental problems are deeply rooted in society, its organization, and the behavior of various groups of actors [1–3,4]. Politicians, administrators, producers, and consumers all make decisions that influence the state of the environment. Like- wise, the consequences of environmental deterioration are shared by many groups and individuals. This gives social analyses a key role in any strategy to achieve or maintain good environmental status and the sustainable use of natural resources. In this article, it is discussed how social data can be structured to effectively support the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) [5], adopted by the European Parliament. Specifically, the article presents a conceptual framework for this purpose. The MSFD establishes a legal framework within which Member States shall achieve or maintain good environmental status (GES) in their marine waters by 2020. The first step of implementing the MSFD was to conduct an initial assessment of the current status of the marine environments and to define GES. From 2013 to 2020, Member States are to introduce monitoring programmes for measuring progress towards attaining GES, and for ensuring that suitable measures are taken and evaluated. When developing marine strategies, Member States can use the results of the initial assessment, which should include ‘an analysis of the predominant pressures and impacts, including human activity, on the environmental status of those waters’ as well as ‘an economic and social analysis of the use of those waters and of the cost of degradation of the marine environment’ (Art. 8.1) [5]. For the economic analysis of marine environments, a working group set up by the EU Commission has established relatively detailed guidelines [6]. Specifically, it was proposed that ecosystem, the- matic, and cost-based approaches should be used to describe the cost of marine environmental degradation. The appropriate forms of social analysis, however, are much less specified. Apart from a general recommendation that both the social and economic analyses should be based on the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact- Response (DPSIR) framework, there are so far no guidelines for the structure and content of the social analysis. The DPSIR framework is briefly described in Section 2. The need to integrate social and environmental analyses is neither new, per se, nor specific to the implementation of EU directives. The Eye on Earth Summit initiative [7] illustrates that access to and integration of environmental and social data have become issues at the global level. Furthermore, it is widely accepted that major projects, such as new infrastructure, require a thorough prior analysis of both environmental and social condi- tions and consequences. The World Bank has published detailed guidelines for considering social dimensions when planning bank- supported projects [8,9], and several other international organiza- tions have taken similar initiatives [e.g. 10]. However, the cited methods and recommendations cannot be directly transferred to the implementation of EU directives. One reason is that when specific projects are in focus, the actors or activities are normally identified à priori. Another reason is that there are normally just a Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/marpol Marine Policy 0308-597X/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2013.11.004 n Corresponding author. Tel.: þ46 766 186 562. E-mail address: eva-lotta.sundblad@havsmiljoinstitutet.se (E.-L. Sundblad). Marine Policy 45 (2014) 1–8