EAF-Nansen Programme

EAF-Nansen Programme contribution towards climate change risks and vulnerability assessments in fisheries and aquaculture

21/12/2020

Climate change is having a profound impact on fisheries and aquaculture, as well as coastal communities who depend on ocean resources for their livelihoods. While climate change is affecting fisheries and aquaculture sector as a whole, specific species, locations, communities and operations will experience the consequences of climate change differently, due to variations in scale and their different adaptative capacity to these impacts. In this context, risk and vulnerability assessments are important tools that have been used in fisheries and aquaculture to estimate the current and potential consequences of climate change in a variety of geographical, environmental, social and economic aspects, and their extent. The resulting information on the sector’s vulnerabilities and associated risks can then inform decision-making processes related to adaptation to climate change, including allocation of resources and prioritization of areas for action.

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Fig. 1. Synthesis of livelihood vulnerability analysis in Mozambique. WSSV stands for white spot syndrome virus. Source: Blythe, Flaherty and Murray, (2015).

However, there is currently no harmonized approach, nor methodology to conduct these assessments. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is finalizing a new publication that analyzes different existing methodologies, in order to lay the basis for a consistent approach towards assessing future climate change risks and vulnerability. As such, the report summarizes three broad types of methodologies (indicators, modeling, and surveys and interviews), and meanwhile, it presents strengths, weaknesses, objectives and extent to which these methodologies are most appropriate, the steps required to implement them, possible degrees of refinements and qualitative assessments of their costs.

The report builds on the findings outlined in two existing FAO Technical Papers: “Assessing climate change vulnerability in fisheries and aquaculture - Available methodologies and their relevance for the sector” and “Impacts of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture - Synthesis of current knowledge, adaptation and mitigation options.” The latter Paper provides an overview of the tools available to inform decision-makers of particular adaptation investments, and the process to develop and implement adaptation strategies. It presents examples of adaptation measures categorized in three broad areas: institutional adaptation, measures addressing livelihoods, and measures intended for reduction and management of risk, which thereby strengthen resilience.

The upcoming report also explores recent advances in approaches towards risk and vulnerability assessments, and the methodological developments in conducting such assessments. This publication has reviewed around 50 relevant scientific papers and various FAO documents, reports and interviews from the past five years, including feedback and lessons learned from the ongoing FAO projects that apply vulnerability and risk assessments. Several recent examples are also provided to give a broad spectrum of possible ways to assess the vulnerability of climate change, or the risk of it (As one of the examples, see Fig. 1 on a community-level vulnerability assessment in Mozambique).

The EAF-Nansen Programme has contributed to the development of the report, by providing technical support for the review of socio-ecological assessments of vulnerability of coastal communities to climate variability and change. The  Programme is foreseen to continue its support in 2021, with the objective to conduct pilot vulnerability assessments based on agreed methodology and produce a final report detailing the methodology and the results obtained from the vulnerability assessment in a selected area of the Gulf of Guinea.

The forthcoming report concludes that recent literature does not introduce breakthrough changes in conceptual approaches or methodologies, but instead improves or tests them to various extent or in different areas, or rather, it contains different methodologies which provide more in-depth assessment of risks and vulnerabilities. In terms of conceptual approaches, recent improvements cover (i) inclusion of multiple threats, (ii) inclusion of other ecosystem services than fisheries, (iii) inclusion of the resilience concept in the socio-ecological systems’ approach, (iv) refinements of the concept of adaptive capacity of societies, and (v) strengthened linkages between vulnerability assessments and other management tools. The majority of existing literature refers to indicator-based vulnerability assessments, although there exists a continuous development in top-down (modeling based) and bottom-up (surveys and interviews) approaches.

Overall, there is a clear trend towards the increased use of risk and vulnerability assessments in adaptation planning, and a closer link with other frameworks such as resilience, and socio-ecological systems. Further work can be developed, based on the existing adaptation toolbox described in the FAO Technical Paper on the Impacts of Climate Change on Fisheries and Aquaculture to better inform adaptation responses to risk and vulnerability. Nevertheless, very few studies have so far tested the validity or effectiveness of their approaches towards assessing risk and vulnerability on the ground, which could potentially be improved in the future.

The report is now available here: