Potential impacts of climate change on agriculture and fisheries production in 72 tropical coastal communities

Climate change is expected to profoundly affect key food production sectors, including fisheries and agriculture. However, the potential impacts of climate change on these sectors are rarely considered jointly, especially below national scales, which can mask substantial variability in how communities will be affected. This study combines socioeconomic surveys of 3,008 households and intersectoral multi-model simulation outputs to analyze the potential impacts of climate change on fisheries and agriculture in 72 coastal communities across five Indo-Pacific countries. The study reveals that potential losses to fisheries are higher than potential losses to agriculture; most locations will experience losses to both sectors simultaneously, though mitigation could reduce this; and potential impacts are more likely in communities with lower socioeconomic status.

Joshua E. Cinner, lain R. Caldwell, Lauric Thiault, John Ben, Julia L. Blanchard, Marta Coll, Amy Diedrich, Tyler D. Eddy, Jason D. Everett, Christian Folberth, Didier Gascuel, Jerome Guiet, Georgina G. Gurney, Ryan F. Heneghan, Jonas Jägermeyr, Narriman Jiddawi, Rachael Lahari, John Kuange, Wenfeng Liu, Olivier Maury, Christoph Müller, Camilla Novaglio, Juliano Palacios-Abrantes, Colleen M. Petrik, Ando Rabearisoa, Derek P. Tittensor, Andrew Wamukota, Richard Pollnac