Integrating Technology, Sustainability, and the Blue Economy to Strengthen Maritime Security and Climate Resilience under Oman’s Vision 2040

Nuha Hamed Al Subhi, Mohammed Nasser Al Suqri

Abstract

This paper examines how technological innovation and governance can be incorporated to improve maritime security and climate resilience in the Oman blue economy in accordance with the national Vision 2040 and Sustainable Development Goal 14 (Life Below Water). We utilised a qualitative methodology and interviewed 15 Omani stakeholders in the public, private, and academic sectors, using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis of the data collection (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The results indicate disaggregated marine information systems that do not allow effective monitoring of illegal fishing, institutional silos between the environmental and fisheries departments and expose the coastal infrastructure to sea-level rise. Stakeholders highlighted the importance of the geospatial technologies (GIS, satellite monitoring) and nature-based solutions (mangrove restoration) to these problems. This paper adds a feasible Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure (MSDI) model to fit in the situation involving Oman with its decentralised governance system, suggesting unified data standards and an inter-ministerial control committee to allow coordinated activity. The work offers a journey of a scalable approach of arid coastal states to balance economic diversification with long-term conservation of the marine.

 

Keywords: Oman Vision 2040; blue economy; maritime security; climate resilience; marine spatial data infrastructure (MSDI); thematic analysis; stakeholder perspectives.

 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.55463/hkjss.issn.1021-3619.66.9


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