The authors are solely responsible for the content of this report. Material included herein does not represent the opinion of the European Community, and the European Community is not responsible for any use that might be made of it.
The tool provides a proforma to assist in the determination of estuarine user conflicts, supported by a user guide detailing the conflict matrix completion process. It requires the user to identify by expert judgement the level of individual resource uses in each management zone, as well as the severity of generic conflicts & synergisms between uses. The conflict severity between each user in each management zone is then automatically calculated.
To minimise assessment bias, it is recommended that the spreadsheet is populated using a small group of experts (a Regional Working Group). The outcomes of the spreadsheets indicate the conflict areas between users (spatial and sectoral) as well as their severity, with synergistic interactions also identified. This allows management resources to be targeted to key areas and provides a transparent basis for stakeholder involvement in the process.