Understanding Adaptive Capacity to Environmental Change: An Analysis of Community Perceptions and Policy Responses to Ocean Acidification and other marine stressors on the West Coast

• Main Author: Moreno, Victoria Doreen
• Other Authors: Spalding, Ana, Boudet, Hilary, Conway, Flaxen, Public Policy
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English; unknown
• Published: Oregon State University
• Subjects: Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_projects/h128nn24p

Ocean acidification disrupts marine and coastal ecosystems’ carbonate chemistry, directly and indirectly affecting communities that depend on critical marine organisms. Ocean acidification research typically seeks to understand natural system responses; yet there is insufficient research that examines community and institutional responses or, more generally, their vulnerability to ocean acidification. This lack of information represents a challenge for the development of policies that might serve to combat ocean acidification, whether they involve mitigation or adaptation strategies. To address this lack of information, this project aimed to understand perceptions of adaptive capacity of members of the Oregon Dungeness crab industry to environmental changes caused by ocean acidification and other environmental stressors. Given the industry’s value to the state, and local community dependence on revenue from the resource, it is necessary to understand how environmental stressors, like ocean acidification, socio-economically affect those reliant on Dungeness crab. To do this, I conducted 12 interviews and collected policy documents related to ocean acidification policy and crab management. I conducted policy analysis using the adaptive capacity framework proposed by Cinner et al. (2018) to assess adaptive capacity. Adaptive capacity refers to the conditions that enable biophysical, social, and economic systems or individuals to prepare for, adjust, and take advantage of new opportunities when presented with a stressor (Folke et al. (2005); Luers (2005); Ekstrom et al. 2015; Engle, 2011; Monnereau et al., 2016). Cinner et al. (2018) offered an interdisciplinary way to analyze adaptive capacity based on their framework’s synthesis of research across a range of disciplines. Results show that economic modifications, modifying their gear, location, season, participating in other fisheries, and scientific studies were the adaptive strategies that Dungeness crab fishermen would gravitate towards. The findings indicate ...