Impacts of “moving ecosystem services” on human uses of the ocean

Dr Catarina Frazão-Santos^1,2, Dr Tundi Agardy³, Dr Larry Crowder⁴, Dr Manuel Barange⁵, Dr Charles Ehler^6,7, Dr Michael Orbach⁸, Dr Francisco Andrade¹, Dr Helena Calado⁹, Dr Hans Otto-Pörtner¹⁰, Dr Rui Rosa¹

¹MARE-Marine and Environmental Sciences Center, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal, ²NOVA School of Business and Economics, NOVA University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal, ³Sound Seas, Bethesda, USA, ⁴Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, Pacific Grove, USA, ⁵Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy, ⁶Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, UNESCO, Paris, France, ⁷Ocean Visions Consulting, Paris, France, ⁸Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, USA, ⁹University of the Azores, Ponta Delgada, Portugal, ¹⁰Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven, Germany

Abstract:

Species range shifts and changing ecosystem services will significantly impact human uses and activities that take place in the ocean – from fisheries to aquaculture, marine and coastal tourism, or marine conservation, among others. While some human uses, such as fisheries or aquaculture, are likely to be globally more vulnerable (that is more exposed and less resilient) to the effects of climate-related drivers of change, other human uses, such as shipping or seabed mining, are likely to be less affected globally. Here we identify and highlight the expected impacts of eight main climate-related drivers of change, including species distributional shifts, in seven main ocean uses. As ocean uses have different social and economic importance for different nations and regions, the social, economic and cultural impacts of these global vulnerabilities will vary from place to place. We advocate that this type of information is key to support local ocean planning, management and governance processes, and thus key to support the achievement of wider sustainability goals.

Biography:

Catarina Frazão Santos is an Auxiliary Research Scientist at the University of Lisbon (MARE) and at NOVA School of Business and Economics, in Portugal. She received her MSc in Ecology and Environmental Sciences, and her PhD in Marine Sciences from the University of Lisbon. Her research addresses ocean planning, policy and management, with a special focus on achieving sustainable use of the oceans in face of a changing climate. She has published in Nature Geoscience, Marine Policy, and other international journals, and received early career awards to support her research from ICES, the Luso-American Development Foundation, and the Portuguese National Science Foundation. Since 2015, she has been supporting the European Commission’s Research Executive Agency on the evaluation of proposals submitted to H2020 Programme, playing roles of Evaluator and Rapporteur (2015-2017) and Vice-Chairperson (2017-2018). She is the leader of a recently funded, three-year R&D project addressing vulnerability and adaptation of ocean planning to global climate change. Her internationalisation network is currently widespread over several countries (USA, Italy, France, Germany) and growing.