Towards a diagnostic approach to climate adaptation for fisheries

Abstract

A diagnostic approach to climate change adaptation for fisheries is proposed to define potential climate adaptation pathways in well-managed fisheries. Traditional climate vulnerability and risk assessments tend to focus on biophysical threats and opportunities and thereby what needs to be done to adapt to climate change. Our diagnostic approach moves from such analysis to focus on how the processes of adaptation and development of adaptive capacity can be structured to achieve desired outcomes. Using a well-grounded framework, the diagnostic approach moves fi·om system description to characterization of challenges and opportunities, through two stages of analysis and validation, to the definition and embedding of adaptation options and pathways. The framework can include all contextually relevant variables and accommodate evaluation of adaptation outcomes and comparisons across scales and contexts. Such an approach can serve as a basis for enabling stakeholders to identify challenges and opportunities, and to explore and prioritize options for development and implementation of legitimate adaptation pathways.

Fisheries regulatory regimes and resilience to climate change

“…Our literature review does not provide a systematic comparison of how different systems perform in terms of resilience, although the criteria presented here could be applied in a quantitative comparison. Previous analyses have conducted systematic comparisons for specific dimensions of resilience (Leith et al 2014; López-Angarita et al 2014; Rivera et al 2014), but our approach could facilitate more encompassing assessments of socio-ecological resilience. Additionally, we provide a framework for future research and suggest new questions based on the likely resilience effects, tradeoffs, and synergies revealed from our review of the existing literature (Table 2).…”

“…Fisher mobility can be high in open access systems, and fishers may be accustomed to shifting from one area to another in the search for productive stocks (SCR-5) (Sumaila et al 2011). On the ecological side, however, fisher mobility is related to a decrease in ecological resilience due to the serial depletion of stocks and to a lower capacity to monitor and determine population dynamics, making adaptive management more difficult (SCR-1) (DeYoung et al 2008; Leith et al 2014). …”

“…There is a growing body of research that addresses the question of resilience to climate change from different angles: by looking at climate change adaptation and resilience in specific fisheries SES (Cinner et al 2009a; Lopes et al 2011; Pinsky and Mantua 2014; Maldonado and Moreno-Sánchez 2014) by assessing the adaptive capacity of fisheries SES to confront climate change (Leith et al 2014; López-Angarita et al 2014; Rivera et al 2014); and by identifying attributes that safeguard economic (van Putten et al 2013) and ecological resilience for a given fishery (McClanahan et al 2012). However, no studies have suggested broadly applicable criteria for assessing socio-ecological resilience of fisheries.…”

Setting objectives for evaluating management adaptation actions to address climate change impacts in south‐eastern Australian fisheries

“…Regardless of the nature of change proposed, sound management adaptation planning requires the performance of adaptation options to be evaluated against a set of clearly defined objectives of fisheries management agreed to by policy makers, fisheries managers, fishers and their communities (Grafton, 2010;Leith et al, 2014). While there are many frameworks for adaptation planning in the literature (e.g., Moser and Ekstrom, 2010), which generally include the identification of the objectives as a necessary early step in the process, it is often omitted in practice, or objectives are developed in isolation of existing sectoral objectives or without stakeholder involvement.…”

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

“…It is important to recognize that there is a spectrum of coastal communities from large urban towns with diverse economic opportunities to small isolated communities, whose economies are highly dependent on the exploitation of marine resources so that there is a need to avoid a ‘one size fits all’ approach. However, we believe that adaptation planning for the future will require socio‐ecological approaches based on the latest available science and embedded in engagement and active participation by the broader community (Leith et al ., ).…”