Adaptation to climate change–related ocean acidification: An adaptive governance approach

Abstract

Climate change-driven ocean acidification (OA) is causing rapid change to global ecosystems and poses a significant threat to marine life. However, predicting ecosystem effects remains highly uncertain and governance responses to OA are not yet forthcoming. Adaptive governance can provide a means to deal with this uncertainty and we consider its application to the polycentric governance of adaptation responses to OA in Scotland, focussing on the aquaculture industry as a vulnerable sector. A workshop was used to develop potential adaptation responses to OA and to gain information about present and potential capacity for adaptive governance at national and regional levels. Scottish legislation, policy and planning documents were subsequently analysed to enable description of how governance arrangements constrain or enable adaptation responses. Legislative and policy analysis indicates convergence across emerging mechanisms in support of adaptive governance. Recent advances in climate change adaptation in Scotland promotes integration of adaptation into wider Scottish Government policy development and functions, based on iterative and collaborative processes across scales. Alongside this, institutional change in coastal and marine governance, including a partnershipled regional marine planning process and devolution of management through Crown Estate Scotland, seek to advance new models of locally-led and learning-based planning and management which can support adaptation. Better integration across policy and planning mechanisms is needed to enhance adaptive capacity, including between climate change adaptation, marine planning and aquaculture planning and management. This could be enabled through co-ordination of monitoring and review processes to promote learning across scale and establishing links between existing and proposed collaborative groups to enhance development of adaptation responses. However, expansion of the aquaculture industry faces significant social and ecological constraints which mean accommodating adaptation through spatial measures is difficult, and is further challenged by the uncertainty in predicting specific OA effects. The low adaptive capacity of the prevailing aquaculture licensing regime is identified as a potential constraint to adaptive governance and recommendations to enhance flexibility and enable adaptation are made.

Coastal Women’s Resilience Strategy against Climate Change Vulnerability in Makassar, Indonesia

“…This study uses qualitative-exploratory research with a phenomenological approach, an approach in a study used to describe and understand the meaning that is considered several individuals or groups of people who come from social and humanitarian problems [15]. This study focuses on adaptive capacity in looking at the vulnerability of women in coastal areas in the city of Makassar by referring to the category concept proposed by Greenhill [14], related to adaptation interventions for the women's security sector to the impacts of climate change. The data source is an object, thing, or person and a place that can be used as a writing reference to collect the desired data according to the problem and research focus.…”

“…This river makes commercial links between Maros and Makassar impossible; (3) Archipelago and Coastal Areas -11 small islands around the coast of Makassar also enrich the marine ecosystem. Consisting of coral reefs, silt, areas of seaweed, and mangrove forests, coastal ecosystems provide a source of livelihood for thousands of households in Makassar, protect beaches from abrasion, develop biodiversity, and strengthen and reduce the vulnerability of women on the coast due to climate change [14,17].…”

“…In adaptive capacity in looking at the vulnerability of women in coastal areas, the authors adopt the concept proposed by Greenhill [14], related to adaptation interventions for the women's security sector to the impacts of climate change as a theoretical basis to distinguish the phenomenon of women's vulnerability in coastal areas in Makassar city, at the end of the discussion there is an adaptive governance strategy that can be recommended in this study to deal with the problem of women's vulnerability in coastal areas. As explained below:…”

Community Science for Coastal Acidification Monitoring and Research

“…Because of OCA's multiple drivers across spatial and temporal scales and its diverse and negative impacts on coastal ecosystem services, OCA constitutes a "wicked problem" for sustainability (Billé et al 2013;Brown, Harris, and Russell 2010;Galaz et al 2012;Greenhill, Kenter, and Dannevig 2020;Kates et al 2001) to which there are no easy comprehensive policy or social solutions. Unlike climate change risks like sea-level rise, storm surge, and flooding, which have generated extensive planning and adaptation tools targeting end-users, there exists a relative dearth of such resources for OCA.…”

Preserving Community’s Environmental Interests in a Meta-Ocean Governance Framework towards Sustainable Development Goal 14: A Mechanism of Promoting Coordination between Institutions Responsible for Curbing Marine Pollution

“…Based on the aforesaid, the literature related to ocean governance from ecosystem perspectives significantly deals with the interconnections among marine environment, land-based sources of pollution, and climate change [14,15]. Furthermore, the emerging literature on SDG 14 suggests several prospects of integrating ocean governance with atmospheric and terrestrial environmental governance involving regional and international organisations based on the old architecture [16].…”