Collaborative Ocean Acidification Mapping for a Changing Salish Sea? Transdisciplinary and Transboundary Barriers

• Main Author: Radach, Katrina
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Western CEDAR 2018
• Subjects: Environmental Studies; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://cedar.wwu.edu/wwuet/706; https://cedar.wwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1724&context=wwuet

Fragmented Ocean Acidification (OA) data and collaboration efforts between disciplines and stakeholders for the Salish Sea are barriers to a more effective transboundary ecosystem understanding and governance. While there are presently efforts to research and monitor OA, there is a significant gap of coordinated efforts throughout the entire Sea, especially around OA biological indicators. To help bridge the gaps and increase collaborative resources, I conducted an exploratory case study of OA data mapping for the changing Salish Sea. For this project, I addressed the following research questions. First, what are the most informative ecological indicators to discern critical climate risk trends from OA? Second, how can OA indicators in the Salish Sea efficiently be mapped? Through a multi-iterative process of semi-structured interviews, online survey, analytic deliberation, and participant observations from the 2018 Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference, I developed an OA online prototype story map. Unexpectedly, I found that transboundary data was unavailable and there was a surprising lack of collaboration between US and Canadian institutions and individuals. Therefore, this project has also evolved to focus on the stark differences in perceptions of collaboration, governance, and transboundary barriers in the Salish Sea. Due to this project evolution, I have additionally developed five prescriptions to address these barriers and address collaboration around OA in the Salish Sea: 1. Develop a Research Coordination Network (RCN) for the Salish Sea 2. Create a Transdisciplinary Framework with Governance Indicators for the Salish Sea 3. Expand Prototype Map with Shared Data