[Coral-List] Fwd: Social-ecological vulnerability of coral reef fisheries to climatic shocks

Jim Hendee jim.hendee at noaa.gov
Tue May 14 13:07:17 EDT 2013


FYI, posted on GCFINET:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[GCFINET] NEW Publication: Social-ecological vulnerability of
coral reef fisheries to climatic shocks
Date: 	Tue, 14 May 2013 12:57:57 -0400
From: 	VanAnrooy, Raymon (FAOSLC) <Raymon.VanAnrooy at FAO.ORG>
Reply-To: 	Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute Network
<GCFINET at LISTSERV.GCFI.ORG>
To: 	GCFINET at LISTSERV.GCFI.ORG

 
*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.

The PDF publication can be downloaded from the following url:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/ap972e/ap972e.pdf




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