Predicting Future Oceans

Sustainability of Ocean and Human Systems Amidst Global Environmental Change

William Cheung, Yoshitaka Ota, Andres Cisneros-Montemayor

• Publisher: Elsevier
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780128179451
• eBook ISBN:
  9780128179468
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Science
• Index: Biological Sciences

Predicting Future Oceans: Sustainability of Ocean and Human Systems Amidst Global Environmental Change provides a synthesis of our knowledge of the future state of the oceans. The editors undertake the challenge of integrating diverse perspectives—from oceanography to anthropology—to exhibit the changes in ecological conditions and their socioeconomic implications. Each contributing author provides a novel perspective, with the book as a whole collating scholarly understandings of future oceans and coastal communities across the world. The diverse perspectives, syntheses and state-of-the-art natural and social sciences contributions are led by past and current research fellows and principal investigators of the Nereus Program network. This includes members at 17 leading research institutes, addressing themes such as oceanography, biodiversity, fisheries, mariculture production, economics, pollution, public health and marine policy. This book is a comprehensive resource for senior undergraduate and postgraduate readers studying social and natural science, as well as practitioners working in the field of natural resources management and marine conservation. - Provides a synthesis of our knowledge on the future state of the oceans - Includes recommendations on how to move forwards - Highlights key social aspects linked to ocean ecosystems, including health, equity and sovereignty

Section 1

Predicting future oceans

Outline

• Chapter 1 Predicting the future ocean: pathways to global ocean sustainability

Chapter 1

Predicting the future ocean: pathways to global ocean sustainability

William W.L. Cheung, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

The ocean and its biodiversity provide ecosystem services that are important for the well-being of human societies. However, environmental impacts from human activities such as overfishing, climate change, and pollution are reducing the capacity of the ocean to support these services. We are now at the crossroads of deciding the relationship between the ocean and people. Understanding such relationships and “predicting” (or projecting) its future provide important knowledge to inform decisions and actions that shape ocean sustainability. This chapter explains the key theoretical and analytical frameworks developed by the Nippon Foundation Nereus Program that contributes to the goal of “Predicting the future ocean.” Particular focuses are put on four components: (1) characterizing the coupled human–natural marine system, (2) exploring the confidence and uncertainty in future ocean projections, (3) examining adaptation to the changing ocean, and (4) elucidating the linkages between the ocean and sustainable development. These frameworks synthesize the understanding of the functioning of marine systems and use models and scenarios to generate projections of the future ocean to inform policies and decision-making. It also helps understand the responses of human communities to the changing ocean and develop new perspectives of viewing the ocean in the context of human society.

Keywords

Coupled human-natural system; future ocean; models and scenarios; uncertainties; climate change; sustainable development; adaptation

Chapter Outline

• 1.1 The coupled human–natural marine system 6
• 1.2 Confidence and uncertainty in “predicting the future ocean” 9
• 1.3 Adaptation to the changing ocean 11
• 1.4 The linkages between the ocean, sustainable development, and policies 12
• References 13

The Earth should be more accurately called the Ocean. Carl Sagan famously described our planet as the “pale blue dot” [1]. This view considers that the Earth is small relative to the size of the solar system while, more notably, the majority of our planet’s surface is covered by the ocean. The ocean is key to the maintenance of the climatic condition of our planet, such as regulation of temperature and maintenance of water cycle, and makes it suitable for the vast diversity of life on Earth to survive, including humans [2,3]. The ocean and its biodiversity also provide many other services to people such as transportation, food, recreation, and culture. The importance of the ocean to us humans is largely undervalued historically [4], partly because of the remoteness of much of the ocean relative to what most people can see and experience every day. However, the tide is turning; in recent decades advancements in ocean natural and social sciences have helped us recognize the vital role of the ocean to the Earth system and humankind [3], along with a sense of the vast scale of our impacts on it.

Our awareness of the human impacts on the ocean and the knowledge about the ocean system is rapidly increasing (Fig. 1.1). Human activities have altered the biophysical properties of the ocean and the impacts on marine ecosystems are detectable by science and visible by the public at large [5] (Fig. 1.1). Such impacts have reduced the capacity of the ocean to support essential ecosystem services and the consequences have started to affect human wellbeing. Clear examples are overfishing and climate change driven by emission of massive amounts of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere that impacts marine ecosystems, biodiversity, and coastal communities such as those in coral reefs [6–9]. Concurrently, over the last century, we have been rapidly generating and accumulating knowledge about the fundamental functioning of the ocean and its coupled natural and human systems. The advancement of technology and increasing international research collaborations have allowed us to go further, deeper, and spend more time observing the ocean. Moreover, new theories and models in oceanography, ecology, and the interrelationships between and within the ocean and human societies have helped us understand the role of the ocean to support human societies and the consequences of human activities on the ocean.

Figure 1.1 Time-series of indicators of ocean observation effort, consequences of human activities on marine environment, fish stocks, and fisheries, and key international marine policies: (A) number of ocean station data casts in the World Ocean Database (×10³) and deployed from Argo¹ (including biogeochemical Argo) (10⁶)—floats with automated instruments deployed to collect real-time ocean conditions data [10]; (B) number of records of occurrence of marine organisms in the Nererus-CORU marine biodiversity database (see Chapter 9: Current and future biogeography of exploited marine groups under climate change); (C) global ocean heat content [11]; (D) global annual fisheries catch [12] (see Chapter 15: The Sea Around Us as provider of global fisheries catch and related marine biodiversity data to the Nereus Program and civil society); (E) mean temperature of global catches, computed from the mean of the temperature preference of species represented in the global fisheries weighted by their annual catch [13]; (F) number of fish stocks classified as overexploited or collapsed using the stock–status plot method (Sea Around Us: www.seaaroundus.org); and (G) year of signing or ratification of major international marine policies in relation to biodiversity, ecosystems, and ecosystem services. Redrawn from J.-P. Gattuso, A.K. Magnan, L. Bopp, W.W.L. Cheung, C.M. Duarte, J. Hinkel, et al., Ocean solutions to address climate change and its effects on marine ecosystems, Front. Mar. Sci. 5 (2018) 337 [14].

We are now at the crossroads of deciding what relationship between the ocean and people we would like to have; this will depend largely on the way we use, value, and govern the ocean in response to climate change and other anthropogenic stressors. Since the 1950s there have been major developments in the governance of the global ocean and regional seas (Fig. 1.1G). Examples of major ocean-related international agreements and governance approaches include the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas, Convention on Biological Diversity, the ecosystem approach to fisheries, the Paris Agreement (with specific mention of the ocean), and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (with a specific Goal for the ocean). International, regional, and local policy actions play an important role in determining the future of ocean(s). To make wise decisions, it is important to understand the consequences of actions and inactions, and identify available options for future ocean sustainability and their benefits, costs, and trade-offs.

The use of scenarios and models is an important tool to integrate knowledge (including scientific, local, and traditional knowledge) and values to inform decisions and actions for the future ocean [15,16]. Scenarios are representations of possible futures for one or more components of a system under its drivers of changes, including alternative policy or management options. Models help describe the system qualitatively or quantitatively and can be used in association with scenarios to provide projections of plausible futures that are consistent with our current knowledge about the system. The use of scenarios and models requires a deep understanding of the functioning of coupled human–natural ocean systems, their past changes, current status, and future options—this encapsulates the essence of “Predicting the future ocean”²—an aspirational goal of the Nippon Foundation Nereus Program (hereafter called the Nereus Program). We set the time frame of the “prediction” [or more accurately projection¹] to the mid-21st century (the 2050s). The contrast in outcomes of alternative decisions on actions and policies (e.g., climate mitigation) now may only start to become detectable robustly at that time frame, and yet a few decades into the future is a close enough time frame that people care about given that changes will be experienced by most of the current generation and their children.

This introduction chapter explains the key theoretical and analytical frameworks developed by the Nereus Program that contribute to the goal of “Predicting the fut...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Section 1: Predicting future oceans
• Section 2: Changing Ocean Systems
• Section 3: Changing Marine Ecosystems and Biodiversity
• Section 4: Changing Fisheries and Seafood Supply
• Section 5: Changing Social World of the Oceans
• Section 6: Governance and Well-Being in Changing Oceans
• Section 7: Ocean Governance Beyond Boundaries
• Section 8: Conclusion
• Index