Amid Brazil’s vast coastline stretching over 7,400 kilometers along the Atlantic Ocean lies a complex and multifaceted array of economic activities collectively known as the blue economy. A recent comprehensive study sheds new light on how this ocean-based economy not only fuels growth directly in coastal municipalities but also ripples through the entire country via intricate interregional linkages. Applying cutting-edge input–output modeling and deploying fine-grained data spanning municipalities and states, researchers have mapped the immense structural diversity of Brazil’s blue economy, providing policymakers with a powerful tool to craft more regionally attuned and sustainable strategies.
This groundbreaking analysis revisits Brazil’s ocean economy with a multi-layered geographic lens, recognizing the country’s highly heterogeneous coastal regions. Where earlier efforts offered broad national estimates, this study drills down into the granular contributions of blue activities—ranging from offshore oil and gas extraction to coastal tourism and marine transportation—across 280 municipalities bordering the ocean in 17 different states. The findings reveal not only where economic activity is concentrated, but also how it integrates with inland economies through supply chains and income flows, highlighting the vital interdependence between Brazil’s coastal and hinterland regions.
Underpinning this ambitious endeavor is an interstate input–output (IIO) model tailored to capture the value chains of blue economy sectors and their systemic impacts. The approach incorporates backward and forward linkages to measure the direct and indirect economic contributions of maritime-related industries. Through partial extraction techniques, the model estimates the cascading effects that ocean activities exert on national GDP and employment, including spillovers into regions far from the shoreline. This level of systemic insight offers a departure from traditional accounting methods by illuminating hidden dependencies and multiplier effects embedded in regional supply networks.
The study discloses that, in 2019, Brazil’s blue economy directly accounted for approximately 2.9% of the country’s gross domestic product and just over 1% of total employment. Strikingly, this influence is heavily skewed towards a small number of powerhouse municipalities, especially in the state of Rio de Janeiro, where offshore petroleum and natural gas extraction dominates local outputs. The ten leading coastal municipalities collectively generate some 60% of the blue economy’s gross output, underlining the critical need for spatially aware policymaking that recognizes the uneven distribution of maritime economic activity.
Further dissecting the regional profile, the research finds substantial heterogeneity among states. While Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Espírito Santo command over 80% of the blue economy’s output, other coastal states such as Ceará, Bahia, and Sergipe show meaningful specialization in sectors like coastal tourism and fishing. Employing the location quotient (LQ) metric, the study categorizes states into clusters based on dominant blue economic activities, depicting a nuanced typology that contrasts maritime transport hubs in the southeast with fishing-centric economies in the northern Atlantic coast and tourism-driven states in the northeast.
This diversity is vividly illustrated using hinge-based circle visualization, which encapsulates relative specialization patterns across key blue economy clusters: fishing, maritime transport, coastal tourism, and defense. Coastal tourism has a stronghold in Brazil’s northeast, while maritime transport is most significant in the southeast and southern regions. The northern states display marked specialization in fishing, with exceptions like the southern state of Santa Catarina breaking the pattern. Defense-related activities cluster from Rio de Janeiro northwards, reflecting strategic geographic priorities.
Spatial mapping of individual activity sectors reinforces the findings. Oil and gas extraction is tightly concentrated around particular offshore reserves adjacent to Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo. Meanwhile, accommodation and hospitality services aggregate along popular coastal tourist destinations, showcasing cluster effects where related industries benefit from co-location. Transportation-related activities emerge in states with well-developed port infrastructure and links to export corridors, such as Maranhão and Espírito Santo, underscoring the role of infrastructure and geography in shaping sectoral footprints.
Stepping beyond direct economic contributions, the systemic significance of the blue economy becomes more evident when indirect and induced effects are accounted for via the interstate input–output framework. The researchers estimate that the blue economy’s multiplier effect elevates its overall contribution to roughly 6.4% of national GDP, more than doubling the direct impact. Employment multipliers are even more striking, generating over 3.5 million additional jobs nationwide beyond the 1.1 million directly employed in marine-related sectors, with a multiplier of about 4.2. These results speak to the substantial ripple effects ocean economies have across Brazil’s industrial and service landscapes.
The assessment also uncovers surprising benefits accruing to landlocked states, which collectively receive nearly 10% of the blue economy’s employment and about 6.5% of its GDP effect indirectly. For instance, Minas Gerais—a key inland state with no coastline—ranks third nationally in terms of employment generated via blue economy supply chain linkages. This interregional spillover highlights the interconnected nature of Brazil’s economy and dispels the notion that ocean-driven growth effects are confined to coastal zones.
The sectoral breakdown reveals that capital-intensive industries, especially petroleum and natural gas extraction, disproportionately influence GDP but account for a relatively minor share of employment due to high automation and capital inputs. Conversely, coastal tourism and defense sectors play more prominent roles in providing jobs, emphasizing the multifaceted social and economic roles the blue economy holds. The indirect effects further illuminate upstream and downstream industrial sectors, including manufacturing, trade, and agriculture, which gain substantial lift from sea-related activities.
Beyond providing detailed metrics, the study reaffirms the critical necessity for tailored regional policy responses. Brazil’s vast and economically diverse coastline resists one-size-fits-all strategies and demands nuanced interventions addressing the unique resource endowments, economic structures, and developmental priorities of its coastal states. Targeted investments in human capital, infrastructure, and sustainable practices must reconcile the trade-offs between economic efficiency and equity to mitigate disparities and foster inclusive growth.
The institutional context in Brazil, however, exhibits gaps in coordinated maritime governance, with existing frameworks like the National Policy for Sea Resources and the National Maritime Policy yet to mature into comprehensive blue economy strategies. The lag in implementing integrated ocean governance challenges the country’s ability to harness its marine assets sustainably while advancing economic development and meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14, focused on “Life Below Water,” by 2030.
This research advocates for an integrated regional approach that leverages the interconnectedness of coastal economies, encompassing not only direct ocean-based industries but also allied supply chains and service sectors. Such a framework acknowledges shared challenges—environmental pressures, infrastructure needs, workforce development—and exploits regional complementarities. Coordinated initiatives could include fostering climate resilience, enhancing maritime spatial planning, supporting small-scale fisheries, and promoting innovation within marine biotechnology and renewable ocean energy.
Moreover, the modeling framework and methodologies developed by the researchers contribute a replicable template for other countries seeking to deepen their understanding of blue economy dynamics. By incorporating fine spatial and sectoral data and harnessing input–output system analysis, policymakers gain actionable intelligence to better anticipate the systemic impacts of ocean-related investments and regulations. This marks an important step toward evidence-based maritime economic planning.
The study’s findings underscore the importance of advancing standardized and harmonized accounting practices across countries to achieve global comparability in blue economy statistics. While progress has been made through initiatives such as Sea Satellite Accounts, further harmonization will enhance the ability of nations, including Brazil, to benchmark performance, exchange best practices, and coordinate multinational efforts addressing ocean sustainability and economic development.
In sum, this landmark investigation into Brazil’s blue economy paints a rich and complex portrait of an ocean-driven sector that is deeply embedded within national and regional economic systems. Recognizing the shades of blue that define Brazil’s coastal economies opens new avenues for targeted policy formulation, sustainable resource management, and inclusive economic growth, situating the ocean not merely as a frontier for exploitation, but as a pivotal axis of future prosperity and resilience.
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Subject of Research: The regional and systemic economic contributions of Brazil’s blue economy using municipality and state-level data integrated into an interstate input–output framework.
Article Title: Shades of blue: the regional structure of the ocean economy in Brazil.
Article References:
Haddad, E.A., Araújo, I.F. Shades of blue: the regional structure of the ocean economy in Brazil. npj Ocean Sustain 4, 15 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44183-025-00112-x
Image Credits: AI Generated
