This guide is targeted at regional planners and spatial data officers involved in national and cross-border
Maritime Spatial Planning. It aims at helping the regional planner understand and evaluate maps and other outputs of spatial data analysis. In addition, it seeks to assist the GIS specialist in understanding Maritime Spatial Planning and designing spatial data analysis workflows in a goal-oriented way. The content of the guide arises from literature and experiences from an MSP pilot project. It was prepared as part of the project Plan4Blue (Maritime Spatial Planning for Sustainable Blue Economies, 2016-2019, http://www.syke.fi/projects/plan4blue), co-funded by the EU European Regional Development Fund (Interreg) and project partner organisations*. The project was carried out in the Gulf of Finland in northern Europe, involving Finland and Estonia (territorial waters and exclusive economic zones of Finland and Estonia). To engage global readership, particularly among GIS specialists who participate in planning processes, the text is published
in English. In addition, the most general content, which is seen as useful to all planners, is also presented in
Finnish and Estonian, to better involve the audience in the project countries.

*Project partners: Finnish Environment Institute SYKE, University of Tartu, University of Turku, Helsinki-
Uusimaa Regional Council, Regional Council of Southwest Finland, Baltic Environmental Forum Estonia.