Beyond Stationarity: The FARO Framework for Quantifying Adaptive Operational Risk in Marine Spatial Planning

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP), the prevailing global governance paradigm for sustainable ocean development, confronts the critical challenge of integrating climatic uncertainty into its core processes. Reliance on the stationarity assumption compromises risk assessments for long-lifecycle assets within the Blue Economy, thereby impeding progress toward principal sustainability objectives. This article introduces and validates FARO (Framework for Adaptive Operational Risk Analysis), a methodological framework designed to operationalize the transition toward climate-smart MSP. The framework’s core innovation lies in furnishing a scalable quantitative structure that directly links high-resolution climatological projections with operational decision-making and capital planning, thereby converting climatic uncertainty into actionable operational risk indicators. Its applicability is demonstrated via a case study of Brazil’s emergent offshore wind industry (Southeastern Marine Region), analyzing impacts under the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios (using INPE-Eta/CMIP5 regional projections). The findings quantify the critical role of technological resilience as a key adaptation variable, revealing a potential reduction in operational downtime from approximately 60% to 10% by enhancing operational capacity from Standard (SWH 2.0 m) to Flexible (SWH 2.5 m). In conclusion, the results indicate that FARO is a robust decision-support instrument, effectively bridging state-of-the-art regional climate science with participatory planning to foster genuinely sustainable and resilient maritime development.