Updated Database of Islands: Methodological framework

A sufficiently detailed breakdown of the economic interrelationships could be achieved on the basis of best available historical regional datasets. Therefore, the tables developed and described in this report provide a valuable input for further analysis. The Blue Economy sectors, however, will receive more detailed analysis and treatment in the process of further research. The main remaining data gap are centered around fishing and aquaculture activities. For coastal and maritime tourism, first suggestions have been made in this report. For fishing and aquaculture activities, all identified datasets did actually only report aggregated figures. This is understandable as, also in most of the regions considered in our project, the overall economic relevance of aquaculture activities remained rather low until now. However, In order to provide the Commission with reliable information on the economic significance of aquaculture activities, it would certainly be useful to encourage appropriate adaptations of contemporarily applied European economic statistical classification patterns in the course of regular revision work. While it remains for future research activities to establish a detailed statistical mapping of the economic activities in the aquaculture sector, all of the other relevant sectors selected by us could be well identified on the basis of available statistical information. Apart from Malta and Cyprus,32 the absence of a European obligation to deliver regional trade statistics on a regular basis made it necessary for us to carry out a time-consuming analysis of further available regional trade data for all islands to be examined. Apart from Malta and Cyprus: The non-availability of regionalized trade data thus calls any attempt to infer regional IOTs into question. In the process of modelling the climate change impacts on the selected islands’ blue economy sectors, the data base developed here will be increasingly refined. Therefore, the work reported here can be thought of a snapshot, which illustrates the difficulties encountered and first results but not yet the full picture.