Arch-Manche: Using Archaeological, Palaeoenvironmental, Historic and Artistic Resources in Coastal Management

The Legal, Historical and Industrial Context of Underwater Heritage: Introduction

“…One of the major objectives of the SPLASHCOS (Submerged Prehistoric Archaeology and Landscapes of the Continental Shelf) network as set out in its original Memorandum of Understanding in 2009 was to promote the field of submerged prehistoric archaeology and landscapes to heritage professionals, government agencies, commercial organisations, policy makers and a wider public, as well as to the wider community of professional archaeologist and scientists, and to encourage cross-border integration and collaboration in this aspect of the underwater cultural heritage. To that end, a variety of activities were organised and documents produced including guidance on the relationship between marine industry and submerged prehistoric archaeology (Satchell 2013) a major workshop held at Esbjerg in 2013 with the North Sea offshore industry: 'Offshore Industry and Archaeology: A Creative Relationship', a variety of other dissemination activities, new projects and publications (see in particular Satchell 2017;Tidbury et al 2017;Missiaen et al 2017), the production of a major position paper for the European Marine Board, the advisory group for European marine policy in all its many dimensions (Flemming et al 2014), and contributions to international workshops, notably a session on Maritime Heritage and Blue Growth at the European Maritime Day held at Athens in June 2015 Full details are available on the SPLASHCOS website (https:// www.splashcos.org/). Some indication of the ways in which the underwater cultural heritage (UCH) is managed and the national and regional institutions responsible for research and management is given in the preceding chapters, most of which have sections on the management of UCH.…”