Communicating Climate Vulnerability Assessments: Role of Expert Knowledge and Applications to Fisheries Management

Abstract

Climate change poses a serious threat to marine organisms around the globe. Global ocean conditions are expected to change over the coming decades, putting fish and shellfish populations potentially at risk. Climate vulnerability assessments (CVAs) are an emerging tool to assess the vulnerability of fish and shellfish species to changes in climate. In 2015, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration developed a standardized methodology for conducting CVAs. The methodology, published by Morrison et al. (2015), includes an expert elicitation process to score a species’ sensitivity attributes and exposure factors, the two component parts that determine overall vulnerability. I aimed to better understand how experts were selected/what roles they played in these CVAs, how CVAs are used in management, and how the results are communicated once completed. To address the objectives, a literature review of existing CVAs that focused on fisheries and had used an expert elicitation process was completed and semi-structured interviews with CVA authors were conducted to fill in information gaps. Practitioners and developers of climate vulnerability assessments were asked questions about both the expert elicitation process and the application of climate vulnerability assessments as a tool for management of marine species. I found that experts were primarily chosen based on species specific knowledge. The intended purpose of informing management was fulfilled in a handful of ways. Communication of results was varied and dependent upon the authors who completed the studies. More detailed and explicit methods and selection criteria will improve the trust, replicability, and utility of the CVAs. These CVAs are being used to inform management decisions, including supporting species listings on the U.S. Endangered Species Act; however, dedicated support for communicating CVA results may improve the utility of these assessments for decision-makers.