The impact of methodological choices on the outcome of national‐level climate change vulnerability assessments: An example from the global fisheries sector

Fish and Fisheries - Tập 18 Số 4 - Trang 717-731 - 2017
Iris Monnereau1, Robin Mahon1, Patrick McConney1, Leonard Nurse1, Rachel Turner2, Henri Vallès3
1Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies (CERMES), Faculty of Science and Technology, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados
2Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter, Penryn, Cornwall, UK
3Department of Biological and Chemical Sciences, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados

Tóm tắt

AbstractClimate change vulnerability assessments have been receiving increasing attention from policymakers and academics. Given scarce funds for adaptation, the UNFCCC Secretariat has suggested that eligible countries be prioritized for support based on their vulnerability to climate change. National‐level fisheries sector climate change vulnerability assessments as well as other overall vulnerability assessments to date have lent support to the idea that least developed countries (LDCs) are more vulnerable to climate change than small island developing states (SIDS) and other coastal countries. We demonstrate that these perceived differences in vulnerability among country groups are partly due to methodological choices made during these assessments. We argue that national‐level vulnerability assessments, and particularly those dealing with the fisheries sector, often suffer from four main methodological shortcomings: (i) an inconsistent representation of countries belonging to each group, (ii) use of socioeconomic indicators that are not scaled to population size, (iii) use of a small number of indicators and (iv) lack of accounting for potential redundancy among indicators. Building on a previous framework, we show that by addressing the four aforementioned methodological shortcomings, the ranking in fisheries sector vulnerability among SIDS, LDCs and other coastal countries is altered significantly. Our results underscore that the vulnerability of SIDS was partially concealed in previous assessments and suggest that SIDS are in fact the most vulnerable group. Although this study focuses on assessing the vulnerability of the fisheries sector to climate change in SIDS, LDCs and other coastal countries, the implications also apply to other sectors and country groupings.

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Fish and Fisheries

Tập 18 Số 4

717-731

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