| Summary: | This paper explores a socio-economic impact of ferry provision in Zadar island archipelago in Croatia. Poor frequency, accessibility, and unaffordable ferry prices to smaller islands have had a detrimental impact on island communities’ sustainability. This prompts for asking what constitutes the socio-economic impact of ferry provision on remote and rural islands’ sustainability. The paper analyses on one hand, regional traces of demographics of population, migration, employment and education; and on the other local traces of emerging island communities’ activities. Adverse impact from the financial resource scarcity and centralisation remain unavoidable, e.g., litoralisation, social exclusion, lack of trade inflows and outflows, entrepreneurship, and lack of employment opportunities for young generations. Island communities are aware of the need for alternative sustainable ways of managing their local economies and this study captures this through communal entrepreneurial and cultural activities. Political actors also must align with their needs in order to provide a long-term sustainable but limited support. Heterogeneity of space and data provides an opportunity for adopting pluralistic and interpretivistic insight and align more closely academic research with evidence-based policy related to rural planning for island archipelagos.
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