From physics to fish to folk: supporting coastal regional communities to understand their vulnerability to climate change in Australia

Abstract

Our oceans comprise valuable assets that provide a range of social and economic benefits directly and indirectly through provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services. Fisheries rely on these services and are regionally important industries for many coastal communities. With a growing population and increasing demand for seafood production, impacts from climate change that alter the productivity of marine ecosystems will have flow‐on implications for economic and social systems. As small coastal communities are often highly dependent on marine‐based activities they are also expected to experience greater impacts from changes in productivity of marine resources than their larger and/or non‐coastal counterparts. To assist coastal communities in evaluating their vulnerability to climate change we have developed a hybrid socio‐ecological vulnerability index that combines an ecocentric index – i.e., an ecological vulnerability index – with a sociocentric index that focuses on adaptive capacity as a measure of vulnerability, and embeds a sustainable livelihoods approach. Through the use of an on‐line tool, coastal communities can improve their understanding of their vulnerability to more appropriately adapt, embrace opportunities and minimize negative impacts that may arise from climate change and its effect on marine resource availability.

Synthesizing and communicating climate change impacts to inform coastal adaptation planning

“…While these changes are global, the ramifications occur at all scales, and decisions for adaptation must be made (Game et al 2011). Coastal regions are unique and especially vulnerable to climate change (Frusher et al 2016;Pinsky et al 2019), and the impacts are diverse and often cumulative. Governments, regions, and communities need to understand what is happening, what knowledge gaps exist, and how they may be able to respond (Hobday et al 2016).…”

South Pacific Integrated Ecosystem Studies meeting: toward conservation and sustainable use of marine resources in the South Pacific

“…Frusher et al . () developed a socioecological vulnerability index that enables coastal communities to undertake a ‘first pass’ assessment of their vulnerability to marine climate change. The contributions by Jennings et al .…”

“…() and Frusher et al . () are good examples of challenges posed in this section, where an increased knowledge of factors affecting vulnerability of coastal communities, the need for models and frameworks that deal with climate change and ways to engage community are required. While many studies have focused on the longer‐term predictions of environmental variables, recent studies in Australia are also focusing on shorter‐term predictions that have greater certainty.…”

“…(2015) developed a socioecological vulnerability index that enables coastal communities to undertake a 'first pass' assessment of their vulnerability to marine climate change. The contributions by Jennings et al (2016) and Frusher et al (2015) are good examples of challenges posed in this section, where an increased knowledge of factors affecting vulnerability of coastal communities, the need for models and frameworks that deal with climate change and ways to engage community are required. While many studies have focused on the longer-term predictions of environmental variables, recent studies in Australia are also focusing on shorter-term predictions that have greater certainty.…”

A Framework for Combining Seasonal Forecasts and Climate Projections to Aid Risk Management for Fisheries and Aquaculture

“…Thus, there is growing interest in forecasting applications to help marine industries in this region ). Here we focus on forecasts of sea surface temperature (SST), a primary environmental variable that is changing and is influential on aquaculture production via direct impacts on growth and survival and indirect impacts through disease, pests, and equipment fouling , and on fisheries through changes in distribution and abundance of the target species (e.g., Madin et al, 2012;Frusher et al, 2016).…”