The blue economy comprises sectors related to maritime and coastal activities. These economic activities either depend directly on marine ecosystems or exert pressure on them. This close link between human welfare and the state of the environment is clearly visible in the exploitation of marine living resources, one of the illustrative sectors of the blue economy. An insight into the complex relationships between nature, economy and society is provided by the concept of sustainability. A set of indicators is used in an attempt to measure sustainability at a sectoral level. This pilot study tests the applicability of the recently proposed Blue Economy Sustainability Framework. The results show the existence of data gaps and the variation within the blue economy sectors in the western part of the Black Sea basin.
Bennett, N. J. et al. (2021) ‘Blue growth and blue justice: Ten risks and solutions for the ocean economy’, Marine Policy, 125, p. 104387. doi: 10.1016/j.marpol.2020.104387.
Eikeset, A. M. et al. (2018) ‘What is blue growth? The semantics of “Sustainable Development” of marine environments’, Marine Policy, 87, pp. 177–179. doi: 10.1016/j.marpol.2017.10.019.
EUMOFA (2022a) Country profile: Bulgaria. Available at: https://www.eumofa.eu/bulgaria.
EUMOFA (2022b) Country profile: Romania. Available at: https://www.eumofa.eu/romania.
European Commission (2021a) Sustainability criteria for the blue economy: Guidelines. Luxembourg. doi: 10.2826/43842.
European Commission (2021b) Sustainability criteria for the blue economy. Luxembourg. doi: 10.2826/399476.
European Commission (2022) The EU Blue Economy Report 2022. Luxembourg. doi: 10.2771/793264.
FAO (2022) Blue Growth, Policy Support and Governance Gateway. Available at: https://www.fao.org/policy-support/policy-themes/blue-growth/en/.
MacLeod, M. J. et al. (2020) ‘Quantifying greenhouse gas emissions from global aquaculture’,
Scientific Reports, 10(1), p. 11679. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-68231-8.
Porter, M. (2008) Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. 2nd edn. Riverside: Free Press.
Smith-Godfrey, S. (2016) ‘Defining the Blue Economy’, Maritime Affairs: Journal of the National Maritime Foundation of India, 12(1), pp. 58–64. doi: 10.1080/09733159.2016.1175131.
STECF (2021) The EU Aquaculture Sector – Economic report 2020 (STECF-20-12). Luxembourg. doi: 10.2760/441510.
STECF (2022a) Economic report on the fish processing industry (STECF-21-14). Luxembourg. doi: 10.2760/715841.
STECF (2022b) The 2022 Annual Economic Report on the EU Fishing Fleet (STECF 2022-06). Luxembourg. doi: 10.2760/120462.
World Bank (2020) Bulgaria: Toward Blue Economy Development. Washington DC. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34934.
