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Ocean Acidification Vulnerability Assessment

Interagency Working Group on Ocean Acidification

Courtney Witkowski, Executive Secretary

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I’ll start by giving some background. Congress directed the interagency working group to write a vulnerability assessment in legislation passed in 2020.

The act included 7 elements the report needed to address. These were:

Identifying gaps in OA monitoring, and areas where we could leverage existing assets to deploy new sensors.
Identifying geographic areas with gaps in OA research, and specifically describing knowledge gaps regarding impacts to economically important species.
Describing habitats that are expected to be vulnerable
Lastly, Identifying coastal communities that may be impacted by OA and describing known impacts to those communities.

The report was released in 2023; it was national in scope and contained regional chapters. I’ll now dive into explaining the framework we used to assess vulnerability within each chapter.

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Social Vulnerability

Exposure: Are communities reliant on marine resources that will be affected by OA?
Sensitivity: What is the social, cultural, or economic value provided by those resources?
Adaptive Capacity: Are communities able to prepare for, adjust to, and cope with OA impacts?

We discuss the region’s social vulnerability to ocean acidification using a framework of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity.

In this context, communities are exposed if they use marine species or ecosystems that are impacted by OA. Assessing exposure requires us to understand if marine resources are being impacted by OA in the region, which depends on how ocean chemistry is changing in the area and how species are responding to these changes. In the report we discuss gaps in monitoring, biological research, and modeling that should be addressed to improve our understanding of the impacts of OA to each region.

The sensitivity of communities will depend on the amount of value they receive from impacted resources, whether social, cultural, or economic.

And lastly, vulnerability can be reduced by increasing a community’s adaptive capacity, which is their ability prepare for and respond to OA.

I’ll next walk through how we addressed these three aspects when assessing vulnerability in the Mid-Atlantic Chapter.

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Mid-Atlantic Exposure

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Mid-Atlantic Sensitivity

In 2019, commercial fishing supported over 136,000 jobs and generated over $497 million in landings revenue.
In 2019, recreational fishing supported over 40,000 jobs and over $1.7 billion in income.
Aquaculture is expanding in every state in the region. Virginia’s aquaculture industry was valued at $53 million in 2018.
Mid-Atlantic states are investing in restoring oyster reefs, which stabilize shorelines and improve water quality.
Species like the blue crab and Eastern oyster have social importance for the Mid-Atlantic.

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Social Science Opportunities

Can we assess sensitivity at a finer geographical scale?
What is the relative economic value of an impacted species?
How do we consider OA impacts in the context of other environmental and socioeconomic stressors?
Can OA information be better integrated into economic models?
How do we capture non-economic value better?
Can we utilize social vulnerability indicators for OA?
Can we assess how OA affects underserved or disadvantaged communities?

In the report, we recognize that there is a widespread lack of information that is needed to make a more detailed assessment of social vulnerability, and there is an opportunity to work with social scientists to fill these gaps.

I want to emphasize that we frame OA as one problem that a community is facing, and we need to look at OA in the context of other stressors, such as sea level rise, natural disasters, high unemployment rates or lack of viable jobs outside of the fishing industry. This may be relevant for states or others thinking about incorporating OA into more general climate vulnerability assessments.

Also, there is an opportunity for us to think about which communities may be disportanielty affected by OA and how we can incorporate environmental justice into this work, which we will hear about next from Amelia.

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Regional Vulnerability Assessments

Vulnerability of oyster aquaculture and restoration to ocean acidification and other co-stressors in the Chesapeake Bay

Marjy Friedrichs (VIMS), Emily Rivest (VIMS), David Wrathall (OSU)

Assessing vulnerability of the Atlantic Sea Scallop social-ecological system in the northeast waters of the US

Samantha Siedlecki (UConn), Lisa Colburn (NOAA)

I did want to highlight several interdisciplinary projects that are assessing vulnerability at a finer scale using social science data. NOAA has funded a number of regional vulnerability assessments to assess vulnerability to OA for certain communities or industries and to provide actionable information such as mitigation and adaptation strategies.

There are two active projects in the Mid-Atlantic that we highlight in the assessment. The first is assessing vulnerability of oyster aquaculture and restoration in the Chesapeake Bay, and Emily Rivest is one of the PIs who can tell you more. The second is assessing vulnerability of the Atlantic Sea Scallop industry, and they are working closely with fishing communities.

We are excited to be funding another round of these regional assessments; the funding call will be released this fall, and we are having a workshop on October 9th where current projects will discuss their results and there will be an opportunity to network with others interested in applying. For states, it could be a great opportunity to learn about the two current projects on the slide and to hear about potential ideas for your region and see if there are opportunities for partnership.

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Mid-Atlantic Adaptive Capacity

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Thank you!

https://oceanacidification.noaa.gov

courtney.witkowski@noaa.gov