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Highlights: Canal estates types have different impacts from climate change, environmental, social, cultural and economic impacts. Two case studies from Australia illustrate different issues for management and potential strategies for management. Differing management is needed to mediate these issues given different governance and policy settings.

Our oceans comprise valuable assets that provide a range of social and economic benefits directly and indirectly through provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services. Fisheries rely on these services and are regionally important industries for many coastal communities. With a growing population and increasing demand for seafood production, impacts from climate change that alter the productivity of marine ecosystems will have flow-on implications for economic and social systems. As small coastal communities are often highly dependent on marine-based activities they are also expected to experience greater impacts from changes in productivity of marine resources than their larger and/or non-coastal counterparts. To assist coastal communities in evaluating their vulnerability to climate change we have developed a hybrid socio-ecological vulnerability index that combines an ecocentric index – i.e., an ecological vulnerability index – with a sociocentric index that focuses on adaptive capacity as a measure of vulnerability, and embeds a sustainable livelihoods approach. Through the use of an on-line tool, coastal communities can improve their understanding of their vulnerability to more appropriately adapt, embrace opportunities and minimize negative impacts that may arise from climate change and its effect on marine resource availability.

The changing geographical distribution of species, or range shift, is one of the better documented fingerprints of climate change in the marine environment. Range shifts may also lead to dramatic changes in the distribution of economic, social, and cultural opportunities. These challenge marine resource users' capacity to adapt to a changing climate and managers' ability to implement adaptation plans. In particular, a reluctance to attribute marine range shift to climate change can undermine the effectiveness of climate change communications and pose a potential barrier to successful adaptation. Attribution is a known powerful predictor of behavioural intention. Understanding the cognitive processes that underpin the formation of marine resource users' beliefs about the cause of observed marine range shift phenomena is therefore an important topic for research. An examination of the attribution by marine resource users of three types of range shifts experienced in a marine climate change hotspot in southeast Australia to various climate and non-climate drivers indicates the existence of at least three contributing cognitions. These are: (i) engrained mental representations of environmental phenomena, (ii) scientific complexity in the attribution pathway, and (iii) dissonance from the positive or negative nature of the impact. All three play a part in explaining the complex pattern of attribution of marine climate change range shifts, and should be considered when planning for engagement with stakeholders and managers around adaptation to climate change.

For decades, many Australian coastal communities have been changing, in varying degrees, from traditional “fishing towns” to “mining”, “tourism”, or “retirement” towns. However, environmental changes, such as climate change, have increased the vulnerability of these communities and their capacity to continue to successfully adapt is unknown. A framework for the assessment of socio-ecological vulnerability is used to provide information on the response to change in Geraldton, Western Australia. Geraldton has traditionally been a port and fishing town and has recently become a hub for the expanding mining industry. An innovative historical assessment of adaptive capacity using sustainable livelihoods analysis with indicators of social, economic, human, financial, physical, and natural capital is used to calculate socio-ecological vulnerability over time. The framework integrates adaptive capacity with environmental change, resource dependence, and the socio-economic importance of the fished species during four census years: 1921, 1954, 1981, and 2011. The earlier years are characterized by high adaptive capacity and low socio-ecological vulnerability in keeping with strong economic growth and low unemployment rates following the First and Second World Wars. The years 1981 and 2011 showed markedly higher socio-ecological vulnerability and lower adaptive capacities. This result was due to progressively greater exposure to climate change and the high socio-economic importance of fished species, as well as relatively poor physical, social, and natural capital. With continuing environmental and economic change, the fishing industry and the broader Geraldton population is likely to become increasingly vulnerable. Proactive rather than passive adaptation may speed the recovery and reduce a decline in the fishing industry and local economies. The paper briefly discusses potential adaptation in Geraldton which may be useful as a guideline for other coastal communities.

Purpose – This paper aims, using a case study-based research approach, to investigate the role of climate and non-climate drivers in shaping three commercial marine sectors: fishing, aquaculture and marine tourism. Essential elements of climate change research include taking a whole of systems approach, which entails a socio-ecological perspective, and considering climate challenges alongside other challenges faced by resource users. Design/methodology/approach – The analysis is based on information gained using in-depth semi-structured interviews in a coastal community in southeast Australia. Even though climate drivers differ, the economic sectors of this community are representative of many similar coastal communities around Australia. Findings – Results show that at a community level, people involved in, or associated with, marine sectors are aware of climate change impacts on the marine environment. Even though many may not see it as a pressing issue, the potential effect of climate change on business profitability was recognised. Both the profitability of commercial fishing and aquaculture (oysters) was affected through mostly a downward pressure on product price, while marine tourism profitability was mainly affected through changes in the number of visitors. Research limitations/implications – A case study approach is inherently case study-specific – although generalities from complex system representation, built on local survey respondent observation and knowledge of the combined and linked physical–biological-, social-, economic- and governance drivers. This study shows the importance of a holistic approach; yet, researchers must also consider all community sectors and cross-regional investigations to avoid future resource conflicts. Practical implications – A number of positive impacts from climate-driven change, mainly from windfall economic benefits of geographically relocated species, were reported for commercial- and charter fishing. However, no positive impacts were reported for the aquaculture- and dive sector. In the aquaculture sector, climate drivers were of great significance in industry participation, while participation in commercial fishing was mainly driven by socio-economic factors. Social implications – To ensure the combined marine sectors retain a viable component of coastal communities’ economic focus, there is a need to understand what drives participation in the marine sector, and what the role of climate change is in this. To fully understand the ramifications of climate change in the marine environment, it is essential to understand its impacts across all marine sectors. Originality/value – Combining the different domains with climate drivers allows for identification and assessment of targeted adaptation needs and opportunities and sets up a comprehensive approach to determine future adaptation pathways.

Estuaries around the world are often degraded and subject to issues surrounding effective management and governance. Without substantial changes in the overall management of many catchments, there is a risk that estuarine health will further decline, causing serious social and economic impacts. The Peel region is one of Australia's fastest growing residential areas and the social and economic wellbeing of the local community is tied to the health of the Peel–Harvey estuary. This estuary is the largest in south Western Australia and has for decades incurred considerable anthropogenic impacts. This study uses the Peel–Harvey estuary as a case study for the assessment of governance structures and ecosystem dynamics using qualitative models. Each model highlights drivers that impact the most important assets, water quality and general environmental quality. Potential management strategies are identified to tackle ineffective monitoring and regulation of impacts, overlapping responsibilities between different public infrastructure providers, and a lack of accountability. Incorporating ‘ideal’ management strategies into ‘future’ models clarified paths of governance and provided better delivery of outcomes. Strong environmental and nutrient management were integral to effective environmental governance, as was the need for whole-of-government environmental decisions to be made in the context of predicted longer-term benefits for all sectors, including the general community. The assessment of social–ecological structures, issues and potential management strategies using qualitative models identified mechanisms to achieve effective management and resulted in predictions of increased environmental quality, as well as increased social and economic values.

Sound planning is vital to ensure effective management of biodiversity, particularly where there is a high risk that management goals may not be achieved. This is the case at Toolibin Lake, an internationally recognised wetland, where changed hydrology as a result of agricultural development has detrimentally affected the quality and quantity of water entering the lake. Although management actions have slowed or halted degradation of the lake’s biological assets, goals have not been fully achieved and management is under review. To rank the hydrological risk factors threatening the lake’s biota as a foundation for more detailed planning, a structured elicitation process was used with an expert, cross-disciplinary group. Techniques used were explicitly aimed at minimising and documenting uncertainty. These included calibration questions to assess the accuracy of experts, and tightly specified goals and terms to minimise vagueness, ambiguity and redundancy. Surface water salinity, groundwater salinity and drought were the only factors identified as having a high probability of causing goal failure. Importantly, the majority of risk factors were evaluated as having a low probability of causing goal failure, enabling these factors to be rapidly eliminated from short-term consideration. The experts, acting anonymously when estimating probabilities, varied considerably in the assessment of one risk. This underlines the importance of rigorous processes to identify knowledge gaps and assess the likelihood that proposed management will be successful. The elicitation process provided low cost, rapid assessment of large numbers of risk factors with explicit assessment of uncertainty.

Metcalf, S. J., Pember, M. B., and Bellchambers, L. M. 2011. Identifying indicators of the effects of fishing using alternative models, uncertainty, and aggregation error. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 68: 1417–1425. The identification of indicators of the indirect effects of fishing is often an issue for fisheries management, particularly if just commercial catch data are available. Complex, intermediate, and simplified qualitative models were produced for a fishery case study off Western Australia to identify potential indicators of ecosystem change attributable to western rock lobster (Panulirus cygnus) extraction and bait input. Models of intermediate complexity were used to identify indicators because they produced the least aggregation error. Structural uncertainty was considered through a series of structurally different intermediate models. These alternate models consistently predicted that extraction of rock lobster may positively impact small fish of low economic value, such as old wife (Enoplosus armatus), footballer sweep (Neatypus obliquus), and king wrasse (Coris auricularis). These small fish were therefore identified as potential indicators of the effects of rock lobster extraction. Small crustaceans (amphipods and isopods) also displayed positive impacts attributable to bait input from the rock lobster fishery and were identified as potential indicators of bait effects. Monitoring of these indicators may aid the detection of ecosystem change caused by the rock lobster fishery.

The behavioural responses of recreational fishers to changes in fisheries management are rarely investigated and as a result may be poorly understood. Changes in fisher behaviour following the introduction of new management strategies can generate unexpected outcomes, such as a shift towards targeting alternative species. Such changes can create new problems for management but even basic data are rarely available to predict the impacts of behavioural changes. Qualitative modelling can be a useful technique in data-limited situations to investigate potential shifts in management problems. This technique was used to investigate the effects of changes in fisher behaviour following the implementation of a seasonal fishing closure on a suite of high-value demersal scalefish. A simple ‘core’ model was used to investigate the dynamics involved in the general management of recreational fishing. A second more detailed model examined recreational fishing in the West Coast Bioregion of Western Australia. Similar results were obtained between the core and detailed models with an increased abundance of primary target species as a result of the closure and a decline in the alternative target species due to target switching. A strong ‘spike’ in fishing effort following the re-opening of the fishery may actually increase fishing effort as a result of a seasonal closure. Additional management strategies, including increased recreational fishing restrictions were investigated. The study identified the need for an understanding of target switching, effort spikes and the ‘value’ placed on primary versus alternative target species.

The value of applying a regional level, Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) framework, which is a step-wise, hierarchical, risk-based approach, was tested on the West Coast Bioregion of Western Australia. With structured stakeholder input, over 600 ecological, social, economic and governance issues were initially identified for the region. This complexity was reduced to a level useful for management by consolidating the individual risks into 60 regional-level risks, with a multi-criteria analysis used to integrate the ecological, social and economic risks into just 24 Departmental-level priorities, which ranged from very low to urgent. Given this success, EBFM-based priorities now form the basis for the Department’s budget planning process, plus the framework is providing a critical link between fishery level issues and the broader processes undertaken by other marine based agencies. The EBFM framework is a significant step forward for the integrated management of natural resources by enabling all assets and issues relevant to stakeholders and government to be holistically considered at a regional level.

Data-limitations increase the uncertainty of quantitative ecosystem models and have the potential to slow the progress of Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management. However, the most important finding of perturbation analysis for managers is arguably simple trends in community abundance. Qualitative models can be used to predict trends following perturbation and require only the signs (+, -, 0) of interactions between variables. To further increase the utility of qualitative models in ecosystem analysis, complementary alternative models, with differing uncertainties and assumptions can be used to assess the robustness of conclusions. Qualitative models and an Ecopath with Ecosim model were produced to investigate the inshore reef ecosystem of eastern Tasmania, Australia. The impact of fisheries, competition between fish species, and increasing urchin abundance on ecosystem dynamics were investigated. Qualitative models highlighted the need to decrease fisheries catches, the potential for cascading effects due to urchin grazing, and the capacity for large rock lobster to allow the regeneration of foliose algae. Ecopath with Ecosim produced consistent conclusions for the majority of qualitative predictions. Inconsistent conclusions were discussed with regard to differences in model calculation and behavior. The process undertaken in this study may allow progress in ecosystem analyses in data-poor situations, which may aid the development and implementation of Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management.

Climate change is altering the rate and distribution of primary production in the world's oceans. Primary production is critical to maintaining biodiversity and supporting fishery catches, but predicting the response of populations to primary production change is complicated by predation and competition interactions. We simulated the effects of change in primary production on diverse marine ecosystems across a wide latitudinal range in Australia using the marine food web model Ecosim. We link models of primary production of lower trophic levels (phytoplankton and benthic producers) under climate change with Ecosim to predict changes in fishery catch, fishery value, biomass of animals of conservation interest, and indicators of community composition. Under a plausible climate change scenario, primary production will increase around Australia and generally this benefits fisheries catch and value and leads to increased biomass of threatened marine animals such as turtles and sharks. However, community composition is not strongly affected. Sensitivity analyses indicate overall positive linear responses of functional groups to primary production change. Responses are robust to the ecosystem type and the complexity of the model used. However, model formulations with more complex predation and competition interactions can reverse the expected responses for some species, resulting in catch declines for some fished species and localized declines of turtle and marine mammal populations under primary productivity increases. We conclude that climate-driven primary production change needs to be considered by marine ecosystem managers and more specifically, that production increases can simultaneously benefit fisheries and conservation. Greater focus on incorporating predation and competition interactions into models will significantly improve the ability to identify species and industries most at risk from climate change.

Ecosystem models are becoming increasingly important as pressure from fisheries intensifies and ecosystem-based fisheries management becomes more widely used. Trophic webs often form the basis of ecosystem models and ecosystem-specific dietary information is crucial for optimal model performance. This is particularly the case if model predictions are used in management decisions. The Tasmanian live fish fishery for banded morwong was used as a case study to investigate the importance of trophic information, model simplification and aggregation error on ecosystem model results. Dietary analysis of 6 commonly captured reef fish was undertaken. Significant trophic overlap was found between blue throat wrasse Notolabrus tetricus and purple wrasse N. fucicola, and banded morwong Cheilodactylus spectabilis and bastard trumpeter Latridopsis forsteri. Marblefish Aplodactylus arctidens and long-snouted boarfish Pentaceropsis recurvirostris had significantly different diets from other species studied. Using this information, a detailed qualitative model was produced and then simplified through the aggregation of variables. Variables were aggregated using 3 methods: Euclidean distance, Bray-Curtis similarity, and regular equivalence for inclusion in 3 simplified models. Variable aggregation is undertaken in many studies and may create aggregation error. Each aggregation method produced a different proportion of incorrect model predictions as a result of aggregation error. The model simplified using regular equivalence produced the least aggregation error and a web structure aligned with the dietary analysis. More widespread use of these methods in fisheries management should be considered.

Reducing the vulnerability of coastal communities to marine climate change requires that communities have some intrinsic capacity to adapt. To assist adaptation planning and the implementation of adaptation strategies, identifying barriers and enablers to adaptation is important. Adaptive capacity, resource dependence, local climate change exposure and biological sensitivity were used to assess socioeconomic vulnerability to climate change in three Australian coastal communities: St Helens, Tasmania; Bowen, Queensland; and Geraldton, Western Australia. Higher adaptive capacity was associated with larger population size (i.e., Geraldton) whereas greater resource dependence, and lower human and natural capital were associated with smaller populations (St Helens and Bowen). Socioeconomic vulnerability was greatly influenced by climate exposure and sensitivity with the moderately sized Bowen having the highest socioeconomic vulnerability to climate change. Adaptation strategies that utilized available assets, improved adaptive capacity, or reduced socioeconomic vulnerability were identified in partnership with local communities, including increased and diversified employment opportunities, the re-establishment of local fish markets, and improved education and communication. The level of resources, or "capitals," available to communities can indicate where barriers and enablers to adaptation exist. Identified barriers to adaptation included a heavy reliance on one sector for employment and a lack of physical capital. We demonstrate that knowledge of intrinsic community characteristics can be beneficial for prioritizing adaptation actions to reduce socioeconomic vulnerability to marine climate change.

Age estimates from clipped dorsal spines were compared to otoliths and scales in the blue throat wrasse Notolabrus tetricus. Dorsal spines provided accurate, non-destructive ageing and are recommended in favour of destructive methods for conservation purposes.

Identifying effective adaptation strategies for coastal communities dependent on marine resources and impacted by climate change can be difficult due to the dynamic nature of marine ecosystems. The task is more difficult if current and predicted shifts in social and economic trends are considered. Information about social and economic change is often limited to qualitative data. A combination of qualitative and quantitative models provide the flexibility to allow the assessment of current and future ecological and socio-economic risks and can provide information on alternative adaptations. Here, we demonstrate how stakeholder input, qualitative models and Bayesian belief networks (BBNs) can provide semi-quantitative predictions, including uncertainty levels, for the assessment of climate and non-climate-driven change in a case study community. Issues are identified, including the need to increase the capacity of the community to cope with change. Adaptation strategies are identified that alter positive feedback cycles contributing to a continued decline in population, local employment and retail spending. For instance, the diversification of employment opportunities and the attraction of new residents of different ages would be beneficial in preventing further population decline. Some impacts of climate change can be combated through recreational bag or size limits and monitoring of popular range-shifted species that are currently unmanaged, to reduce the potential for excessive removal. Our results also demonstrate that combining BBNs and qualitative models can assist with the effective communication of information between stakeholders and researchers. Furthermore, the combination of techniques provides a dynamic, learning-based, semi-quantitative approach for the assessment of climate and socio-economic impacts and the identification of potential adaptation strategies.

Detailed sampling of a bipartite clay lens within a karstic hollow at Hornsleasow Quarry, Gloucestershire, has revealed an extensive fauna of early Bathonian vertebrates. Both terrestrial and freshwater aquatic forms are represented. The Bathonian of the Cotswolds (Oxfordshire-Gloucestershire) is producing information on fossil vertebrates during a key episode in their evolution that is not well represented elsewhere in the world. The taxa revealed in preliminary studies include some of the earliest known salamanders, champsosaurs, lizards(?) and maniraptoran(?) dinosaurs. Other remains include turtles, sphenodontids, crocodiles, pterosaurs, dinosaurs (sauropods, theropods, ornithopods, stegosaurs), tritylodont mammal-like reptiles and ‘eupantothere’ mammals. The terrestrial nature of the deposit, particularly the palaeokarst and overlying soils (with their indigenous flora and fauna) suggest a period of emergence of the Cotswolds carbonate shelf in the early Bathonian. The lower Bathonian Cotswolds environment is considered to have been one of low-lying, coastal swamps with bayous, and to have had a hot and humid climate. These studies will enhance our knowledge of the proposed localized Bathonian ‘marine regression’.