Storm risk and marine fisheries: a global assessment

Abstract

Coastal storms can affect marine fisheries in multiple ways and have the potential to negatively affect the socio-economic well-being of fishery dependent coastal nations. To date, storm risk to marine fisheries is poorly understood. This study provides a global assessment of coastal nations’ risk to storm impacts on their fisheries. We calculated a risk index of coastal nations to storms using the 5th IPCC risk framework. We find that tropical countries in the Caribbean, South- East Asia, and Oceania are most at risk, with multiple Small Island Developing States ranking the highest. Most coastal nations in Africa ranked low for overall risk, due to low exposure, but highest in terms of vulnerability. In addition, we detect a positive correlation between fishery specific adaptive capacity and the general adaptive capacity of coastal countries, suggesting that the capacities of fisheries to respond to climate change might be related to broader national adaptation capacities. The index provides can be used to guide the development of targeted strategies for increasing adaptive capacity of fishery dependent nations to storms, which are a significant threat to the well-being of coastal nations.