FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Circular. No. 1082

Joshua Cinnero
Principal Research Fellow
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University
Townsville, Australia

Tim McClanahan
Senior Conservation Zoologist
Wildlife Conservation Society
Bronx, United States of America

Andrew Wamukota
PhD Student
School of Natural Sciences Linnaeus University
Kalmar, Sweden

Emily Darling
Smith Fellow
Earth to Ocean Research Group
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, Canada,

Austin Humphries
PhD Student
Rhodes University
Grahamstown, South Africa

Christina Hicks
PhD Student
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University
Townsville, Australia

Cindy Huchery
Research Assistant
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University
Townsville, Australia

Nadine Marshall
Social Scientist
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
Townsville, Australia

Tessa Hempson
PhD Student
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University
Townsville, Australia

Nick Graham
Senior Research Fellow
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University
Townsville, Australia

Örjan Bodin
Research Fellow
Stockholm Resilience Centre
Stockholm, Sweden,

Tim Daw
Lecturer
University of East Anglia
Norwich, United Kingdom

and

Eddie Allison
Senior Lecturer
University of East Anglia
Norwich, United Kingdom

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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Rome 2013

ABSTRACT

Cinner, J., McClanahan, T., Wamukota, A., Darling, E., Humphries, A., Hicks, C., Huchery, C., Marshall, N., Hempson, T., Graham, N., Bodin, Ö., Daw, T. & Allison, E. 2013.
Social-ecological vulnerability of coral reef fisheries to climatic shocks. FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Circular No. 1082. Rome, FAO. 63 pp.

This circular examines the vulnerability of coral reef social-ecological communities to one effect of climate change, coral bleaching. The objective was to develop and test in Kenya a community-level vulnerability assessment approach that incorporated both ecological and socio-economic dimensions of vulnerability in order to target and guide interventions to reduce vulnerability. In addition to a range of direct threats such as siltation, overfishing and coral disease, coral reefs are now threatened by climate change. Climate impacts on coral reefs and associated fisheries include: increasing seawater temperatures; changes in water chemistry (acidification); changes in seasonality; and increased severity and frequency of storms, which affect coral reef ecosystems as well as fisheries activities and infrastructure.

Coral bleaching and associated coral mortality as a result of high seawater temperatures is one of the most striking impacts of climate change that has been observed to date. As warming trends continue, the frequency and severity of bleaching episodes are predicted to increase with potentially fundamental impacts on the world's coral reefs and on the fisheries and livelihoods that depend on them.

The analysis presented in this circular combined ecological vulnerability (social exposure), social sensitivity and social adaptive capacity into an index of social-ecological vulnerability to coral bleaching. All three components of vulnerability varied across the sites and contributed to the variation in social-ecological vulnerability. Comparison over time showed that adaptive capacity and sensitivity indices increased from 2008 until 2012 owing to increases in community infrastructure and availability of credit. Disaggregated analysis of how adaptive capacity and sensitivity varied between different segments of society identified the young, migrants and those who do not participate in decision-making as having both higher sensitivity and lower adaptive capacity and, hence, as being the most vulnerable to changes in the productivity of reef fisheries.

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