The role of Public Participation in sustainable port planning

Ports play a strategic role in the development of domestic and international trade and have a strong impact on the liveability of the local community hosting the port as well.They face many problems related to the multitude of actors directly and indirectly involved and the variety of interests they represent. For these reasons port planning requires appropriate skills and procedures to be successful. One of the biggest issue is the need of Public Participation (also referred as Community Involvement or Public Engagement) into the decision-making process, in order to make the planning practice effective and (cost) efficient. What is important is to engage all the stakeholders from the very beginning of the planning process with different levels of involvement during all the relevant phases. Taking into consideration the stakeholders’ needs and concerns it will be easier to find the most shared solutions pursuing port sustainability.