A key emerging concern in the current Anthropocene era (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000) concerns whether our social and governing systems are able to adapt to new environmental conditions and challenges resulting from global change, both in the short-term and long-term and locally and globally. How do social and governing systems respond to stresses threatening ecosystems and the resources they provide? Do these responses enhance or harm the resilience of natural systems? Marine and coastal systems represent vulnerable ecosystems upon which a great proportion of the world population depends for its livelihood, diet and cultural and recreational uses. The key priority is not just to better understand ongoing changes, but to estimate their impacts on society and select the most suitable strategies and responses to mitigate, adapt and live with change (Biggs et al. 2015).
The literature on the factors that influence whether a governing system achieves ecological and social sustainability is growing, but there is no comprehensive model to integrate these factors, to examine success within or across cases (Ostrom 2009) or to learn from experience. Further, little attention is paid to the cultural and institutional contexts in which the decision to cope with natural or anthropogenic stressors has been made (Glaser and Glaeser 2014,). New governing systems that are robust and resilient to a range of changing climate conditions will have to be found soon, favoring reversible and flexible options and reducing decision times (Hallegate 2009).
The IMBeR (Integrated Marine Biosphere Research project) Human Dimension Working Group (HDWG) developed I-ADApT (IMBeR Assessment based on Description, responses and Appraisal for a Typology, Bundy et al. 2016) to fill this gap. It is an integrated assessment framework that builds on knowledge and lessons learned from past experience of responses to global change, and is designed to enable decision makers, researchers, managers and local stakeholders to (1) make decisions efficiently; (2) triage and improve their responses; and (3) evaluate where to most effectively allocate resources to reduce vulnerability and enhance resilience. I-ADApT is developed from case studies of marine systems facing a crisis as a result of global change. These case studies represent examples of vulnerable marine systems that are not simply faced with a common-pool management problem or a single long-term climate change issue, but are confronted with immediate risks and crises such as pathogens, ocean acidification, destruction of habitats, hurricanes, tsunami, anoxic water, pollution, invasive species, poverty and coastal urbanization. The governing systems have proved to be creative when responding to such crises by effective communication, fundraising or adopting self-protection (reducing the likelihood of events) or self-insurance (mitigating the consequences of events) measures. These responses have been evaluated using the I-ADApT framework to conduct comparisons within specific social and ecological contexts and to develop a typology in which the characteristics of social, ecological and governing systems can identify actions to mitigate or address crises caused by global change. These case studies form the core of this book.
The objective of this book is to introduce I-ADApT and illustrate how it can be used to (a) describe case studies of global changes to linked human and natural marine systems using a common template, (b) develop a typology of responses to global change, (c) use the typology to compare and synthesize case studies, highlighting similarities and distinctions between successful and less successful responses and (d) illustrate how this approach can be used to compare marine social-ecological resource crises to enable decision makers to identify potential solutions. Here we describe the I-ADApT framework, briefly describe the case studies, then use them to develop a typology which groups them into clusters, which form the structure of this book. In the conclusion chapter, lessons are drawn from the use of the I-ADApT framework and the I-ADApT typology.
The decision support tool, I-ADApT, enhances decision making through the development of a typology of case studies linked to an underlying detailed database that provides lessons on how the natural, social and governance systems have responded to the challenges of global change. It builds on knowledge from existing marine case studies where some action was taken, successful or not, to counteract the environmental, social or other impacts of global change.
I-ADApT consists of: (i) a detailed template to describe and document the natural, social and governing dimensions of the case study using standardized questions, (ii) a database of case studies and (iii) a typology of case studies. The first two elements have been described in Bundy et al. (2016) and are summarized later. The typology of case studies, also described later, is a first-order entry point to enable decision makers to compare marine social-ecological resource crises and identify potential solutions. It can also be used to address synthetic questions such as: Is there any appropriate level of governance for the system to be governed (Bavinck et al. 2013)? What are the similarities and differences between the success stories? Between the failures? Is a strong governing system sufficient to cope with a global change crisis? What is the role of public support in managing a global change crisis affecting a marine system? How much do the cultural and political contexts matter for the quality of responses?
I-ADApT is based on a systems approach, which recognizes the natural and human systems as interacting, linked subsystems of a larger human–nature system (Berkes and Folke 1998). It explicitly considers the linked natural, social and governing subsystems to explore (1) the types of issues faced, (2) strategies used to cope with/address global change issues, (3) an appraisal of the success – or not – of these strategies and (4) what factors contribute to this success (Figure I.1).
The conceptual framework of I-ADApT builds on existing approaches to assess the vulnerability or governability of marine ecosystems, e.g. DPSIR (Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response; Burkhard and Muller 2008) and the Interactive Governance framework (Bavinck et al. 2013), and includes an appraisal of responses provided by the social and governing systems (Figure I.1). In addition to describing the issue of the case study; the natural, social and governing contexts; and the response(s), the I-ADApT framework appraises the response(s) by providing an evaluation of whether the response was successful or not.
An I-ADApT case study template was developed to capture and describe the concepts of change, vulnerability, governability, adaptive capacity and responses using a common set of questions to standardize across the case studies (Preston and Stafford-Smith 2009). The case study template is composed of 30 questions encapsulating descriptors of the natural, social and governing systems, which are grouped into six sections1:
This template was revised in consultation with case study contributors during the development of I-ADApT to improve its utility and to reduce ambiguities. A glossary is included to clarify the definitions of key terms.
The information in the case studies has two uses in the I-ADApT framework: (i) all the information (quantitative, qualitative and narrative) is included in a database to explore the results of the typology and (ii) a subset of the information is transformed into quantitative data for use in the I-ADApT typology.
Twenty case studies were provided by respondents from governments, scientists contacted by HDWG members in their respective networks (scientific associations, fishery management organizations and research networks, of which 15 concern fisheries and other industries such as tourism and 5 relate to aquaculture systems [Table I.1]. Full template responses are available in the I-ADApT database.2
| Acronym | Case study | Main issue | Area (km²) | % of local population affected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
BA_mang |
Bay of Bengal (Sundarbans) mangrove (Bangladesh) |
Cyclones causing major damages to mangrove fisheries |
6,000 |
>20 |
BB_oyst |
Bourgneuf Bay oysters (France) |
Oyster epizooty caused by herpes virus |
100 |
<5 |
BS_fish |
Baltic Sea fishery |
Variability of salinity conditions affecting fish stocks |
415,000 |
15 to 20 |
BU_pela |
Southern Benguela pelagic fishery (South Africa and Namibia) |
Shift of natural conditions affecting small pelagic fish stocks |
220,000 |
15 to 20 |
CB_oyst |
Chesapeake Bay oysters (USA, East coast) |
Oyster disease (parasites) and depletion |
1.2 |
5 to 10 |
CM_mang |
Cameroon mangrove |
Overexploitation of mangrove ecosystems |
2,800 |
5 to 10 |
GR_Amv |
Amvrakikos Gulf (Greece) |
Upwelling of anoxic water killing farmed fish |
525 |
<5 |
GR_Mal |
Maliakos Gulf (Greece) |
Ichthyotoxic algal blooms |
92 |
5 to 10 |
IN_reef |
Spermonde Archipelago (Indonesia) |
Population growth and overfishing |
2,500 |
10 to 15 |
MB_oyst |
Matsushima Bay oysters (Japan) |
Norovirus outbreak after the destruction of sewage facilities by a tsunami |
35.3 |
<5 |
OB_poll |
Omura Bay pollution (Japan) |
Water quality degradation |
320 |
>20 |
ON_tour |
Onna village (Okinawa tourism, Japan) |
Water pollution by red clay outflow |
50.8 |
>20 |
PH_poll |
MMO river system (Philippines) |
Water pollution from a river system |
130 |
<5 |
SH_poll |
Jin-Shanzui village (Shanghai) (China) |
Water pollution from urbanization |
3.5 |
>20 |
SL-cora |
Sekisei lagoon coral reef (Ishigaki Island, Okinawa, Japan) |
Deterioration of coral reefs, loss of fish habitats |
600 |
>20 |
TB_shrm |
Tokyo Bay mantis shrimp (Japan) |
Marine pollution caused by industry affecting shrimp populations |
9,000 |
<5 |
UR_clam |
La Coronilla-Barra Del Chuy-yellow clams (Uruguay) |
Mass mortality of clams by fresh water runoffs |
2.3 |
<5 |
US_oyst |
U.S. Pacific Northwest (Puget Sound) oysters |
Ocean acidification killing oyster larvae |
49,000 |
<5 |
VL_clam |
Venice lagoon clams (Italy) |
Introduction of an alien clam species |
550 |
<5 |
YB_clam |
Yokohama Bay clams (Japan) |
Lack of property rights for clam gathering |
470 |
<5 |
The case studies include marine systems from four continents (Figure I.2). Half are from Asian marine systems, five from Europe, three from the Americas and two from Africa. These studies include temperate, equatorial and tropical systems from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, covering a wide spectrum of natural conditions, communities, governing systems and global change issues. The area of the ecosystems included in the case studies is variable, ranging from a few square kilometers to hundreds of thousands (Table I.1). Some issues occur in bays or lagoons, whereas others spread over the open ocean, crossing many international borders. Beyond the exposure to major events like cyclones or tsunamis, the sensitivity of human activities to such risks fluctuates according to the number of livelihood opportunities that are available other than fisheries and aquaculture systems. Consequently, the size of the population affected by the issue varies between a small proportion to more than 50 percent, depending on their reliance on natural resources or water quality.
The case studies can be characterized by descriptors related to the main issue or the covered area (Table I.1), but they can also be described by the type of species and ecosystems, the nature of industry (e.g. fishery, tourism, aquaculture), the natural and social settings, the design of the governing system and management institutions, the type of reaction or anticipation when facing global change issues and the relative success of their mitigation and adaptation efforts. The cultural conditions are also important (i.e. the role of the state and its financial support will not be equivalent). The I-ADApT typology was developed to summarize these details and categorize the case studies into similar types, enabling analysis and comparison across and within types and between success stories and unsuccessful responses.
A typology is an ordering of entities into groups based on similarity but also introduces additional multidimensional and conceptual aspects (Alessa et al. 2009, Glaser and Glaeser 2014). The aim is to reduce the complexity of linked natural and human systems. Many typologies dealing with natural systems refer to the concept of ecosystem functions (de Groot et al. 2002). More rarely available are typologies based on vulnerability and strategies developed by the governing system to cope with global change issues such as climate change (Maru et al. 2011). To develop the typology based on the case studies in this book, the qualitative responses in the I-ADApT case study templates were scored and transformed into semi-quantitative data. These were then analyzed using a multiple factor and cluster analysis process to develop the typology, where cases are added to the same cluster if they share common characteristics in their natural, social or governing systems (Figures I.3 and I.4).
The results of the classification frame the structure of the book. The headings of each section were chosen to provide insight into each cluster’s common descriptors, as taken from the I-ADApT results. These groups then also represent the first points of entry for users who wish to identify their own studies with one of these clusters.
Case studies: Matsushima Bay oysters (Japan), U.S. Pacific coast (Puget Sound) oysters, Bourgneuf Bay oysters (France)
These case studies have common values across several variables, particularly in terms of vulnerability and governability. All represent aquaculture oyster systems which are sensitive to environmental shocks (the issue affects less than 5 percent of the local population, but more than 80 percent of farmers’ income comes from shellfish sales, with limited alternative livelihood opportunities). The three studies share concerns about the ecological status of their ecosystem prior to the main issue. The affected social systems are regional or national, but the governing system is dominated by local farmers’ associations, although supported financially by national aid in the case of major shocks such as the Great Tohoku Tsunami in Japan in 2011. For most of these systems, the main issue remains unsolved in the long term because of unpredictable pathogen blooms, water pollution and/or upwelling of acidic water (Guillotreau et al. 2017).
Case studies: the Spermonde Archipelago (Indonesia) and Baltic Sea fisheries
These case studies are linked by their common response and appraisal categories. Characterized by a mix of stressors (overfishing, destruction of habitats, pollution, eutrophication, anoxia, increasing sea surface temperatures) and medium productivity, the two social-ecological systems also share several factors preventing managers from meeting their long-term objectives of fishery restoration: poverty, migration and weak governance in the Spermonde Archipelago; sea stratification, decreasing salinity and slow renewal of the whole water body in the Baltic Sea. In spite of these adverse social and natural conditions, the two systems have responded with a variety of long-term actions such as management plans and restoration programs: quotas, bans of destructive fishing gear and fisheries for endangered species, coral reef rehabilitation programs, ecosystem-based management programs and large monitoring systems. Consequently, the systems cannot be considered fully sustained, but are improving slowly, at least in the Baltic Sea, whereas the success of responses remains undetermined in the Spermonde Archipelago case.
Case studies: Amvrakikos fish kills (aquaculture, Greece), Maliakos Gulf fish kills (fishery-tourism, Greece), Venice lagoon clams (Italy), Omura Bay pollution (Japan), Yokohama Bay clams (Japan)
The social-ecological systems in this cluster are located in Europe and Japan. They tend to be local systems ruled by government-based (top-down) management decisions and suffer from water quality problems such as pollution, turbidity, eutrophication and anoxia. Compared to cluster 1, the sensitivity of three systems in cluster 3 is lower, with fishing accounting for less than 20 percent of household incomes. The social or governing system responses were considered as rather successful in two studies, as failures in two others and as undetermined in the fifth.
Case studies: Marilao-Meycauayan-Obrando river system (Philippines), Bay of Bengal (Sundarbans) mangrove (Bangladesh), Jin-shanzui village (Shanghai) pollution (China), Southern Benguela pelagic fishery (South Africa), Chesapeake Bay oysters (USA, East Coast), Tokyo Bay mantis shrimps (Japan), La Coronilla-Barra Del Chuy yellow clams (Uruguay), Cameroon mangroves.
This cluster contains the largest number of case studies, which initially look different in terms of size and natural and social conditions. However, the ecosystems were commonly degraded before the issue occurred, with high anthropogenic pressures accelerating this degradation. Social power is business dominated in most cases, and relationships are sometimes conflicting, with a limited number of informal rules. The degree of sensitivity to fishing is low, with 40 percent to 60 percent of household revenue coming from other livelihood sources. These systems are facing different key factors preventing full success of management responses, despite the quality and strength of their coping policies, revealing a challenging problem of governability. In more than half of the case studies, the main issue remains unresolved several years after the emergence of external shocks.
Case studies: Onna village (Okinawa) tourism (Japan) and Sekisei lagoon coral reef (Ishigaki Island, Okinawa, Japan)
The typology grouped two systems from the Okinawa region of Japan, mainly because of common social characteristics. Social power is dispersed, which did not facilitate short-term collective decisions. The number of alternative livelihood opportunities is limited, and the proportion of the affected population exceeded 20 percent. Effective responses had to be found when the marine system was hit by major crises such as coastal pollution (by red clay outflows) or habitat destruction (because of coral reef degradation), threatening fisheries, biodiversity and tourism. Local institutions (e.g. the Sekisei Lagoon Nature Restoration Committee, Fisheries Cooperative Associations), known as co-management governing systems, have undertaken actions to prevent habitat degradation and restore the coastal area. Most long-term objectives seem to have been met by these voluntary policies.
Lessons can be learned from all the selected case studies as to characteristics or strategic responses that have succeeded or failed to address the original issue. By success, we mean response effectiveness, which needs to be judged on a case-by-case basis, using pre-defined criteria (Preston and Stafford-Smith 2009). We use a simple results-based management approach (OECD 2003) for the appraisal component, which focuses on performance and achievement of outputs and outcomes. Outputs are short-term effects related to response objectives and are achieved if the objectives of the responses are met for the natural and social systems to be governed and the governing systems; the outcomes are longer-term effects that are achieved if the main global change issue was addressed. Specific questions in the case study template have been designed to elicit this information.
The concluding chapter of this book provides an integration of the main lessons learned from each of these case studies and an evaluation of the I-ADApT framework by the authors, most of whom were not involved in its development. The case studies described in this book represent a variety of national, social and governance systems from a range of ecosystems. By using a standardized template, such diversity becomes a strength to explore and understand human responses to global change marine crises. The typology provides one method of reducing and systematizing this information, although the information contained in the narratives of each case study is still available for further exploration and analysis. A further key value of this approach will be in developing the large database of case studies, which can be subjected to different methods of analysis, including quantitative, such as used here, and qualitative (for example, textual analyses) to provide guidance on how to respond to marine crises and how to develop natural, social and governance system resilience to changes which are likely to become more common in the future.
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Note (1): This scoring has been done by members of the IMBeR HD Working Group, and not by the respondents.
Vulnerability assesses how ‘vulnerable’ or susceptible the system (comprising natural, social, and governance components) is to shocks or pressures.
QB - BACKGROUND INFORMATION- Main Issue Question
The number of people affected by the Main Issue (from Background section) expressed as a ratio to the total number of people in your case study area (also from Background Section), ie, size of affected population/total population:
(QBA) less than 5%
(QBB) between 5% and 10%
(QBC) between 10% and 15%
(QBD) between 15% and 20%
(QBE) greater than 20%
Q3. What are the main stressors that affect this ecological system?
Q6. What is the ecological status of the affected ecosystem at the ecosystem level prior to the main issue?
Q7. What is the productivity of the system (low, medium or high)?
Q8. What are the main livelihood activities (e.g., fishing, tourism, etc.) directly affected by the Main Issue?
Q9. What other livelihood opportunities (e.g., farming, manufacturing, forestry, etc.) are there in the affected area?
Q10. What % of the total catch/production is used for household consumption (not sold)?
Q11. What proportion of household income comes from local sales of fish catches, processing, and wholesaling?
Governability: Governability refers to the ‘overall quality’ for governance. It is affected by the “capacity” of the governing system, the characteristics of the systems that are being governed, and the interactions between them.
Q2. Which of the following levels is the Main Issue related to? Please describe for each system and level
a. Local, b. Regional, c. National, d. International - repeated for Natural, Social, Governing Systems
Q2N. Natural System |
||
(Q2NA) Local |
(Q2NB) Regional |
(Q2NC) National |
(Q2ND) International |
(Q2NE) ALL |
Q2S. Social System |
||
(Q2SA) Local |
(Q2SB) Regional |
(Q2SC) National |
(Q2SD) International |
(Q2SE) ALL |
Q2G. Governing System |
||
(Q2GA) Local |
(Q2GB) Regional |
(Q2GC) National |
(Q2GD) multi-level (domestic) |
(Q2GE) International |
Q13. What is the mode of governance
Q15. What are the key rules, regulations, instruments and measures employed to achieve the management objectives?
Q16. Are there any informal rules, regulations, instruments and measures that play an important role in the governance of fisheries and aquaculture?
Q17. What is the nature of the relationship between the different sectors or livelihood occupations in this system (i.e., ranging from conflict to cooperation)? Please tick the box corresponding to the most appropriate situation between conflict (Q17A) and cooperation (Q17E) in the system:
Q18. Who dominates or wields the most social power in the area (e.g., fishers’ associations, unions, corporations, governments, business owners, etc.)?
Q19. How concentrated is social power in the area. Please tick the box corresponding to the most appropriate situation of the social system, between dispersed social power (Q19A) and concentrated social power (Q19E):
Q20. Were there any structural changes in the governing system or individuals prior to the main issue? Please describe the changes and why they occurred?
Q21. Were there any changes to the key rules, regulations, instruments and measures, or have any new ones been introduced prior to the main issue? Please describe the changes and why they were introduced
Appraisal – coded, but not used for the initial numerical classification. Instead, used to evaluate whether clusters of case studies were deemed to have been a success, or not.
