Fishery policy in the European Union: A multiple criteria approach for assessing sustainable management of Coastal Development Plans in Southern Italy

Fishery planning and management require environmental, social, and economic assessment that should take into account multiple sustainability criteria as well as the preferences and priorities of decision-makers involved in these complex issues. Therefore, this research aims to identify in a straightforward way the most sustainable coastal development plan (CDP) among a set of several CDPs and to investigate in depth the effective sustainable use of the public fishery's fund among the considered CDPs. This is accomplished by implementing a multiple criteria decision aiding (MCDA) framework that has been tested by six fisheries’ local action groups (FLAGs) CDPs in a territorial system strongly affected by fishery activities in the Apulia region of Southern Italy. In particular, the framework was classified into 12 criteria grouped into three sustainability dimensions according to the actions identified by the CDPs; the data collection was carried out by consulting the CDPs. After collecting the data, the MCDA framework was applied by involving the regional consultant on fishery affairs. An analysis of the results clearly showed that the best performances in the distribution of the available funding were related to the coherence of the CDPs with specific environmental, social, and economic features. The proposed MCDA framework can represent support for decision-makers and stakeholders to consider and evaluate in a systematic and robust way different possibilities for funding distribution to detect optimal alternatives within European fishery policies.