Key publications of Plan Bleu

Report 2005

A sustainable future for the Mediterranean: the Blue Plan's environment and development outlook Méditerranée : les perspectives du Plan Bleu sur l'environnement et le développement BENOIT Guillaume (ed.), COMEAU Aline (ed.). Foreword by Lucien CHABASON English edition: Earthscan, 2005. 450 p. : maps, figures, tables, statistics French edition : Edition de l'Aube, 2005. 428 p. : maps, figures, tables, statistics Order here the English edition Order here the French edition

• What will be the future of the Mediterranean in 2025?
• What will be the future of our cities, our rural areas, our mountains and our coastlines?
• Our modes of transport, our energy supply, our water and land resources?
• Which alternatives to reconcile the environment with development?
• Is it possible to choose a future that takes tomorrow's generations into account and give more chances to the region?

These are the issues covered in this publication, which brings together the contributions of the riparian countries, the European Union, and more than 300 experts of both Mediterranean shores. Including over 400 pages, 250 maps and graphs, and a wealth of case studies, it constitutes a follow-up of the first Plan Bleu report on the Futures of the Mediterranean Basin, published in 1989.

Click here to download the chapters of the report.

English summary - French summary - Arabic summary

 

Report 1989

Futures for the Mediterranean Basin. The Blue Plan Le Plan Bleu. Avenirs du bassin méditerranéen GRENON Michel & BATISSE Michel (eds.). Foreword by Mostafa K. TOLBA English edition: Oxford University Press, 1989. 279 p. French edition: Economica, 1989. 442 p. FR (out of print) / ENG (out of print) / ARA (out of print) / SPA (out of print) / TUR (out of print) Principal report about scenarios published in French (Economica), English (Oxford University Press), Arabic (Edifra, Paris), Spanish (Ministerio de Obras Públicas, Transportes y Medio Ambiente, Madrid) et Turkish (T.C. Çevre Bakanligi, Ankara).

This volume contains the main report on the Mediterranean scenarios resulting from Blue Plan prospective studies. Based on national scenarios wherever these were available and on the various sectoral scenarios already established, it considers the Mediterranean basin as a whole.

Founded on coherent sets of hypotheses, five scenarios were built up to the horizons 2000 and 2025. They explore possibles images of the future of the « Mediterranean system »: agriculture, industry, energy, tourism, transport, urbanization, and their interactions with soils, forests, inland waters, the coast and the sea.

The so called trend scenarios are founded on a more or less marked world economic growth; evolutions do not go far away from the present heavy trends. On the contrary, the alternative scenarios do move away ; they are characterized by a volontary attitude from the Mediterranean governments towards the integration of environmental concerns into development strategies, and to the importance given to an effective intra-Mediterranean cooperation.

The whole exercise shows that protection of the Mediterranean Sea, its shores and coastal regions, depends largely on the overall development, environment and land-use planning policies followed by the Mediterranean countries at the national level.

Suggestions for action aim at ensuring a sustainable development of the region by targetting actions on the relationships between economic sectors and environmental components, on the protection of the most threatened milieux and on the promotion of cooperation among the Mediterranean countries .