Assessment of maritime activities through blue growth in the European Atlantic Region.
Supervisors: Ibon Galparsoro, Arantza Murillas (AZTI).
The blue economy has been widely recognized as a development model and has an important role in the socio-economic growth of a region, including the European Atlantic region. However, field research focusing on the impact of the blue economy on socio-economic growth so far is limited, even when the concept of blue growth has grown. This study aims to provide more insight concerning the blue economy by assessing the contribution of the maritime sector on the socio-economy status of the five Atlantic European member countries and their impact on the socio-economy status in the European Atlantic region. For this purpose, this research first designs the conceptual framework of the blue economy and then classifies relevant socio-economic indicators. Six sectors of the blue economy were selected in this research, namely living resources, coastal tourism, shipbuilding and repair, maritime transport, port and water projects, and marine extraction of oil and gas. The data used in this research is related to European Atlantic Regions using the Nomenclature of Territorial Units (NUTS). The results showed that the six sectors investigated in this study contributed 2.33 % of the total workforce and contributed 1.66 % of the gross value added in the European Atlantic countries. From the aspect of employment, it was found that the sector that gave the highest contribution to the blue economy was the beach tourism sector (1.33%). The next important sector is the utilization of biological resources, followed by ship building and maintenance, port projects, oil and gas extraction, and finally, sea transportation. In terms of gross value added, it was found that the most important sector in the blue economy was the beach tourism sector (0.73%). The next important sector is the oil and gas extraction sector, followed by the utilization of biological resources, port projects, sea transportation, and ship building and maintenance. Furthermore, this study develops a Bayesian Belief Networks (BBN) model to represent the status of the living resources, port and water projects, coastal tourism and maritime transport sectors in European Atlantic member countries and their impact on labor absorption and gross value added in the European Atlantic region.