Adaptive Capacity Level Shapes Social Vulnerability to Climate Change of Fishing Communities in the South Brazil Bight

Abstract

Understanding the social vulnerabilities and community strategies to adapt to environmental changes are crucial for the development of actions to enhance both community conservation and survival. With the aim to identify the drivers of vulnerability to climate change among different coastal communities a comprehensive multiscale vulnerability framework was here adopted. Eight selected fishing communities representative of the South Brazil Bight (SBB) area were surveyed at the household level. A total of 151 fishers were interviewed. Quantitative indicators were calculated at the community-level, and their drivers identified, allowing for comparisons of the overall vulnerability score. Findings revealed that remoteness and the lack of climate changerelated institutional support increase vulnerability among fishing communities in the region. On the other hand, community organization, leadership, research partnerships, community-based co-management, and livelihood diversification reduce vulnerability. Our analysis focused on social vulnerability to climate change in regional fishing communities and provides a better understanding of these effects in coastal zones, the factors explaining vulnerability and some perspectives on resilient and adaptable systems. Learning from comparisons at the ecosystem level may be applied to coastal regions elsewhere.

Social Vulnerability and Human Development of Brazilian Coastal Populations

“…Silva et al (2019) brought dimensions of social adaptive capacity, species vulnerability, and ecosystem vulnerability at the state level. Martins and Gasalla (2020) explored social vulnerability indexes to climate change at the community level. It also seems important to incorporate intangible values in the vulnerability index, such as the attachment to a place, the cultural importance of fishing, local ecological knowledge, and attitude and perception of people to change, to enrich the notion of the coastal community's vulnerabilities (Martins et al, 2019).…”

Vulnerability of fishery-based livelihoods to climate variability and change in a tropical island: insights from small-scale fishers in Seychelles

“…This is the same period that closure zones are implemented on Praslin Island in order to allow for increase in fish size and number, but householders that cannot venture further into the sea are likely to have access to lesser fish stocks. However, it is worth mentioning that fishers on Praslin are allowed to fish in the Baie Ste Anne lagoon during the southeast monsoon in order to augment their income and livelihood given that small-scale fisheries is important for food security and employment especially in developing countries [8][9][10]. Otherwise the lagoon is closed during the northwest monsoon to allow fish to increase in size and number-an indication group cohesion has an impact on management strategy of fisheries as demonstrated in the case of Praslin when compared to Mahe with several fishers association.…”

“…Small-scale fisheries are exposed to a range of natural and anthropogenic stressors, such as growing competition for natural resource, economic and financial uncertainty and policy that require changes in their behaviour to mitigate damages and to take advantage of opportunities [5,6]. Climate change is another stressor that affects food security and employment especially those livelihood activities considered to be climate sensitive by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) such as agriculture, fisheries and tourism [7][8][9][10][11]. Its impacts such as rising global average temperature and changes in precipitation patterns are already affecting ecosystems, biodiversity and human systems throughout the world [5,8] and across sub-Saharan Africa based on recent study in the sub-region [12].…”

Social Vulnerability of Coastal Community Due to Climate Change: An Exploratory Study of Coastal Region of Sindh

“…Natural hazards and procedure of mitigating climate change to reduce any kind of disaster functions to measure exposure to hazard and its' sensitivity to hazard and how to physically respond it. In this perspective, the social landscape is regarded as static and seems like an external factor that is not part of the situation (Martins & Gasalla, 2020). Contrastingly, it is openly believed that exposure, sensitivity, and adaptation ability are dynamic and different regarding time and communities.…”