Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goal 14 (Life below water) in the context of Brazil: A multicriteria approach

The oceans are a source of various essential resources for daily life, such as tourism and fishing. Brazil possesses thousands of kilometers of coastline, enjoying it with various activities such as fishing, tourism, and transportation. The importance of the oceans was highlighted by the United Nations (UN) with the creation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), one of which is dedicated to the oceans, SDG 14 "Life Below Water." However, there are numerous difficulties in achieving a reasonable level of progress in SDG 14 in Brazil, and these difficulties transform into multidisciplinary barriers. To overcome these difficulties, a methodology for identifying and prioritizing barriers that hinder the progress of SDG 14 in Brazil is presented. Through an extensive literature review, the barriers were identified and divided into three distinct categories: "Technical and environmental," "Policy and management," and "Socioeconomic." The methods fuzzy-DELPHI, Borda Method, Hesitant Fuzzy Sets (HFS), and Step-wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) were used to the prioritization of the barriers. The results indicated that the most important category is Policy and Management, with a weight of 43.68%. The most prominent barrier is the Relaxation of the environmental licensing system for impactful activities (C2.1) with 15.07% of the weights. Based on the discussion and qualitative analysis of the relationship between the barriers, some solutions were proposed to improve SDG 14 in Brazil. Future research can benefit from the methodology by applying it to new contexts. Finally, additional studies can focus on the impact of the proposed actions, as well as monitor and track the progress of SDG 14 in Brazil.