Co-creation and transference of a Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment tool for MPA managers: evidence from the Mediterranean Sea

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are essential area-based tools for marine biodiversity conservation and are proposed as a nature-based solution to support climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts. However, MPAs themselves are not immune to the impacts of climate change. In the Mediterranean Sea, MPAs are at the forefront of climate change impacts, due to greater temperature rise and extreme events occurrence. Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments can be an accessible practice for MPA managers to 1) Keep track of climate change risks to their systems; 2) Inform and prioritize adaptation actions; and 3) apply a social-ecological perspective to conservation (combining ecological, socio-economic and governance information). Despite vulnerability assessments are rapidly growing in the scientific literature, a key challenge remains on the most effective design and development of an assessment, that achieves its goals while reaching broad implementation and transferability.   

Thanks to the MPA-Engage and MPA4Change Interreg-MED projects, a novel Vulnerability Assessment methodology was co-developed with managers from 7 Mediterranean MPAs. Through a collaborative process, this common methodology was tested in the 7 MPAs, collecting ecological, social and governance indicators through expert, bibliographic and primary social and ecological data collection. The methodology calculates a multidimensional socio-ecological index that combines the vulnerability scores of habitats, species, and MPA user groups. It provides detailed individual scores for each category, as well as an overall vulnerability score, under six future scenarios aligned with three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs): RCP 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5 for a near-term (2050) and a long-term scenario (2100). A toolbox was created to be able to replicate and transfer the vulnerability assessment within and across MPAs.  

The present study shows the results of the transferability process. First, we have collected the feedback from MPA implementors and expert scientists, incorporating it into the fine-tuning of the vulnerability tool. Second, a new enhanced version of the vulnerability tool has been transferred to two new MPAs: the eastern Mediterranean Cape Greko MPA, and the Alentejo and Costa Vizantina MPA in the southern Portuguese Atlantic. These areas have been chosen to test replicability and transferability to a different region outside of the Mediterranean region. Our study provides on-the-ground evidence about the implementation, limitations and manager’s experience of a climate adaptation tool. We conclude that the co-creation process involving MPA managers and technicians has been crucial to the tool’s development and success. Their collective feedback and insights have not only refined the methodology but also enhanced its practicality. The process has resulted in capacity building, where new MPAs are able to learn from peers and apply the vulnerability tool in new contexts. Lessons learned from this process can help the needed implementation of climate change adaptation tools in practice and support climate change adaptation efforts in the Mediterranean Sea and beyond.