School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States of America.
Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, WA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2022 Aug 17;17(8):e0272120. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272120. eCollection 2022.
Climate change is already impacting coastal communities, and ongoing and future shifts in fisheries species productivity from climate change have implications for the livelihoods and cultures of coastal communities. Harvested marine species in the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem support U.S. West Coast communities economically, socially, and culturally. Ecological vulnerability assessments exist for individual species in the California Current but ecological and human vulnerability are linked and vulnerability is expected to vary by community. Here, we present automatable, reproducible methods for assessing the vulnerability of U.S. West Coast fishing dependent communities to climate change within a social-ecological vulnerability framework. We first assessed the ecological risk of marine resources, on which fishing communities rely, to 50 years of climate change projections. We then combined this with the adaptive capacity of fishing communities, based on social indicators, to assess the potential ability of communities to cope with future changes. Specific communities (particularly in Washington state) were determined to be at risk to climate change mainly due to economic reliance on at risk marine fisheries species, like salmon, hake, or sea urchins. But, due to higher social adaptive capacity, these communities were often not found to be the most vulnerable overall. Conversely, certain communities that were not the most at risk, ecologically and economically, ranked in the category of highly vulnerable communities due to low adaptive capacity based on social indicators (particularly in Southern California). Certain communities were both ecologically at risk due to catch composition and socially vulnerable (low adaptive capacity) leading to the highest tier of vulnerability. The integration of climatic, ecological, economic, and societal data reveals that factors underlying vulnerability are variable across fishing communities on the U.S West Coast, and suggests the need to develop a variety of well-aligned strategies to adapt to the ecological impacts of climate change.
气候变化已经对沿海社区产生了影响，而由于气候变化，渔业物种生产力的持续和未来变化对沿海社区的生计和文化产生了影响。加利福尼亚洋流大海洋生态系统中捕捞的海洋物种在经济、社会和文化上支持着美国西海岸的社区。加利福尼亚洋流中有针对个别物种的生态脆弱性评估，但生态和人类的脆弱性是相互关联的，而且脆弱性预计会因社区而异。在这里，我们提出了在社会生态脆弱性框架内评估美国西海岸依赖渔业的社区对气候变化脆弱性的自动化、可重复使用的方法。我们首先评估了渔业社区赖以生存的海洋资源在 50 年气候变化预测下的生态风险。然后，我们根据社会指标，将这一风险与渔业社区的适应能力结合起来，评估社区应对未来变化的潜在能力。一些特定的社区（特别是在华盛顿州）由于依赖面临风险的海洋渔业物种（如鲑鱼、鳕鱼或海胆），被认为面临气候变化的风险。但是，由于社会适应能力较高，这些社区通常不是总体上最脆弱的。相反，某些在生态和经济上不是最脆弱的社区，由于社会指标（特别是在南加州）上的低适应能力，被归类为高度脆弱的社区。某些社区由于渔获物组成和社会脆弱性（低适应能力）而面临生态风险和社会脆弱性，导致处于最高脆弱性级别。气候、生态、经济和社会数据的综合表明，美国西海岸各个渔业社区脆弱性的根本因素是不同的，这表明需要制定各种协调一致的战略来适应气候变化对生态的影响。
