The artisanal fishing sector in Chile faces a confluence of stressors that threaten its sustainability and the livelihoods of those depend on it. Foremost among these are the impacts of the El Niño phenomenon, illegal fishing, fluctuations in public fisheries policies, market volatility, and resources overexploitation. This study analysis the adaptive mechanisms and biographical trajectories of artisanal fishers in central-northern Chile, examining how these communities have navigated socio-ecological transformations over the past 40 years amid both climatic and anthropogenic changes.  

Using a qualitative research approach, we conducted 70 in-depth interviews with artisanal fishers from the region. The findings reveal a complex adaptive landscape in which individual-level responses, particularly learning and agency, play a pivotal role. Informal, intergenerational knowledge transfer among fishers fosters resilience and supports adaptation to the dynamic socio-ecological conditions inherent to artisanal fishing practices. Moreover, elevated levels of agency empower fishers to actively respond to and address the various changes impacting their daily lives.

At the collective level, action spaces—such as local unions and cooperatives—play a crucial role in enabling long-term adaptation. These spaces facilitate multiple mechanisms, including the acquisition of territorial rights, productive rationalization, enhancement of organizational legitimacy, and the negotiation of access to economic resources and essential services. Additionally, engagement with governmental institutions has fostered critical linkages, expanding these organizations' capacity to channel public resources, which strengthens the broader social and economic fabric of coastal communities. However, these adaptive processes also give rise to new social stratifications characterized by dynamics of inclusion and exclusion based on organizational membership with territorial rights. Gender-based stratifications have also emerged, frequently marginalizing women from decision-making roles and resulting in disparities in resource access and opportunities.

The findings highlight the importance of recognizing diverse adaptive mechanisms within socio-ecologically vulnerable communities, illustrating how both informal knowledge systems and collective structures bolster resilience against long-term socio-ecological pressures. Understanding these adaptive responses has crucial implications for developing governance frameworks that reinforce community-led strategies. Policies aimed at supporting the resilience of artisanal fishing communities must tackle the intertwined challenges of inclusion and stratification, ensuring equitable resource access while fostering sustainable fishing practices. This research advances the field of marine governance by demonstrating the pivotal role of informal, community-based adaptation strategies and provides insights for enhancing coastal community resilience amid global environmental and economic shifts.

How to cite: Estevez, R. A., Gonzalez, M., and Gelcich, S.: Adaptive Mechanisms of Artisanal Fishing Communities Amid Long-Term Socio-Ecological Transformations in North-Central Chile, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-715, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-715, 2025.

Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are driving an accumulation of heat in the oceans, resulting in a warming trend that disrupts marine ecosystems and economies reliant on marine resources. These changes already have profound implications for human systems, prompting various adaptive responses. However, how communities are responding, as well as the factors driving these responses, remain largely unexplored. Therefore, the aim of this study is to empirically test how adaptation and transformation responses are shaped by climate change impacts and the social characteristics of the different communities, exploring the relative importance of each of these adaptation co-founding factors.

To do this, we look at small-scale fisheries (SSF) as social-ecological systems (SES), and assess how these communities adapt to climate change based on the severity of impacts and their adaptive capacities. We develop three in-depth case studies to explore which responses allow equitable and sustainable fishing livelihoods under climate change in Nayarit (Mexico), Galicia (Spain), and Shikoku (Japan). These regions greatly differ in the intensity of impacts and in their social and governance settings. Across these regions, we test an adaptation pathway framework to understand how social resilience varies, applying a set of adaptive capacity indicators to analyze responses to climate change. For this, we categorized these responses along a continuum, from "remaining" (non-active adaptation) to "coping" (e.g., reducing fishing expenses or altering fishing locations), "adapting" (e.g., targeting new species or using new technologies), and "transforming" (e.g., adopting alternative livelihoods, migrating, or leaving fisheries) as climate impacts intensify (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Adaptation responses of small-scale fisheries along a gradient of increasing climate change impact intensity, progressing from "remaining" (no active adaptation) to "coping," "adapting," and finally "transforming." Adapted from Fedele et al. (2019) and Ojea et al. (2020).

We found that fishers generally progress along the adaptation pathway as impact increases. However, this pattern varies by region due to the interaction of environmental, economic, and social factors. First, although warming and species redistribution are global trends, the precise effects and available response options differ locally. Second, fishers’ access to essential assets for adaptation (such as technology or financial resources) strongly influences their ability to adopt new strategies, including targeting different species. Third, adaptive capacities and responses are intricately linked to the SSF organization and management structures. In some cases, these systems exacerbate existing power imbalances, potentially creating "social-ecological traps" where fishers are restricted from adopting sustainable adaptation practices. The established management structures may even hinder resilience and contribute to unsustainable practices, placing additional stress on fishing communities and marine ecosystems.

These findings underscore the need for adaptation strategies that integrate social determinants and therefore become more just, particularly by fostering equitable access to adaptive resources and strengthening social capacity. Such adaptations may challenge existing governance structures and fisheries regulatory regimes. However, transformational efforts are needed as effective adaptation planning for SSF can help ensure their sustainability and the well-being of coastal communities, the production of sustainable seafood and to support resilience in an uncertain climate future.

How to cite: Elias Ilosvay, X. É., Ojea, E., Salgueiro-Otero, D., Aceves Bueno, E., Tovar-Ávila, J., Rentería Bravo, J., Medina Santiago, I. A., Kumagai, N. H., and García Molinos, J.: Adaptation and resilience of small-scale fisheries to climate change involves institutional changes, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-347, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-347, 2025.

Coastal areas in Central America are important for the local populations of each country, as well as for the health of the oceans and their ecosystems. According to University of Costa Rica data, these geographic spaces are home to 21% of the total population of the Central American region.

In these spaces there is significant pressure for the population, which is in a condition of socio-environmental vulnerability derived from the difficulty of access to land, marine-coastal resources and the neglect of the Central American States for health care, education and the poverty eradication, among others. In addition to the above, climate change and climate variability increase adverse conditions for the Central American coastal population.

To ensure the resilience of these coastal populations, it is necessary for each Central American State to develop comprehensive and specialized public policies to address social and environmental vulnerability. However, this is a very distant reality, due to the lack of social, economic and environmental information of this Central American population.

For the above, a data homologation project for the determination of coastal socio-environmental vulnerability in Central America has been developed by the Interdisciplinary Coastal Program of the National University of Costa Rica; in conjunction with the University of San Carlos of Guatemala, the National Autonomous University of Honduras, the University of Panama and the University of Western Brittany of France; to identify the variables and data in each country that allow a characterization of the vulnerability condition in the Central American isthmus.

In this way, it is intended to present the results of this research to the OOSC, as well as scientific recommendations to the Central American academy and the different States of the isthmus, to ensure the availability of comparable data in the region, which allows the development of future scenarios for this population, and thus public policies can be generated that allow a better quality of life for the Central American coastal population.

How to cite: Hernández, M., Bailly, D., Pernudi, A., Quirós, J., Chavarría, S., and Girón, F.: Coastal socio-environmental vulnerability in Central America: recent advances towards its characterization, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-395, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-395, 2025.

Vulnerability of coastal areas to sea level rise is a major issue, which has got attentiveness lately. Coastal areas face numerous threats and stresses associated to sea level rise and variability. Thirteen of the world's twenty biggest cities are in coastal area, and more than a third of the world's inhabitants live within hundred miles of coastline. Changed frequencies and intensities of severe weather, amalgamated with sea level rise, are estimated to have frequently antagonistic outcomes on natural and human systems. Coastal communities are exceedingly susceptible to sea level rise impacts, largely because of three causes, high resource reliance, high exposure and restricted adaptive capacity. India has a 7,517 km elongated shoreline with numerous low-lying and densely inhabited areas with approximately 260 million people living within 50 km of the coastline. The upsurge in sea level in the north of the Indian Ocean has been witnessed to fall in the range of 1.06 - 1.75 mm per year in the earlier century. A network of infrastructures housed in these highly vulnerable areas. It is exceedingly appropriate to start climate proofing infrastructure and services, given the climate sensitive nature of the existing infrastructure techniques in the coastal areas. It could be sustained and succeeded in such a way that it is equipped to resist sea level rise impacts that it may be exposed to during its operational lifetime. Climate Adaptive capacity is closely associated to social and economic development but is erratically distributed through and within societies. This research paper discusses on application of ocean-based approaches for climate adaptation strategies and building coastal resilience for the coastal communities in the Visakhapatnam metropolitan city of India. It summarizes with suitable policy and institutional reform, capacity building and enhanced knowledge management with effectiveness, equitability and safety of ocean-based approaches towards escalating the resilience and adaptive capacity of the coastal communities to present and impending sea level rise to contribute towards the mitigation and adaptation goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.

Keywords: Climate adaptation, Sea level rise, Coastal resilience, Coastal communities, Infrastructure Assessment, Climate resilience planning

How to cite: Mandal, S. K. and Rani, S.: Climate Adaptation Strategies for Addressing Sea-Level Rise and Building Coastal Resilience in Urban Areas: Lessons from the Metropolitan City of India, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-690, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-690, 2025.

Background: The escalating impacts of climate change, including rising sea levels, intense storms, and increasing environmental unpredictability, necessitate a paradigm shift in coastal engineering. Effective solutions must integrate robust engineering with nature-based approaches to deliver sustainable, adaptable outcomes. Over four decades, International Coastal Management (ICM) has pioneered the development and application of an innovative coastal resilience framework, integrating a tailored approach of artificial reefs, nearshore nourishment, artificial headlands and dune restoration. Implemented across diverse coastal environments in Australia and the Arabian Gulf, this framework has demonstrated measurable success in stabilising coastlines, enhancing biodiversity, and enhancing environmental resilience. 

Methods: ICM’s framework combines engineering innovation with natural processes to deliver site-specific coastal resilience strategies. Key components include:  

• Multi-Purpose Artificial Reefs: Engineered to dissipate wave energy, retain sand, and encourage biodiversity. Examples include the Narrowneck Reef on the Gold Coast, constructed with sand-filled geotextile containers, to semi-emergent and submerged reefs in Abu Dhabi and Ajman. 
• Nearshore Nourishment: Strategic addition of sediment to replenish beaches and support natural shoreline dynamics. A notable example is the 2017 Gold Coast project, which added over 3 million cubic meters of sand into the system (with a focus on nearshore placement). 
• Dune Restoration: Reinforcement of natural defences through vegetation planting, fencing, and the creation of ecological corridors to stabilise coastlines and enhance biodiversity. 
• Artificial Headlands: Designed to mimic natural features, these structures stabilise coastlines by dissipating wave energy and encouraging sand deposition. Recent innovations include hybrid headland designs with berms, asymmetrical forms for recreational opportunities, and headland fields to compartmentalise beach systems. 

Each intervention is informed by comprehensive feasibility studies, advanced physical and numerical modelling, and long-term monitoring programs.  

Results: The integrated application of these strategies has delivered measurable geomorphological and ecological benefits.  

• On the Gold Coast, the combination of artificial reefs, nearshore nourishment, and dune management, retained 75% of the sand from the 2017 nourishment project within the system five years later, stabilising the coastline. 
• Artificial reefs in both Australia and the Arabian Gulf demonstrated measurable reductions in erosion, while fostering marine biodiversity and improved sand retention.  
• Dune restoration efforts created vital habitats for native flora and fauna, while enhancing the shoreline’s natural defences against storm impacts.  
• Innovations in artificial headlands, such as hybrid designs incorporating low-crested berms, improved sand retention and minimised downdrift impacts, while offering enhanced recreational and community spaces. 
• Insights from the Arabian Gulf highlight the importance of tailoring designs to extreme climates, ensuring adaptability to diverse coastal environments. 

Conclusion: ICM’s coastal resilience framework illustrates the effectiveness of combining engineering innovation with nature-based solutions to address immediate and long-term coastal challenges. By employing a tailored combination of artificial reefs, nearshore nourishment, dune management, and artificial headlands, the framework offers a replicable and adaptable model for sustainable coastal protection. These strategies not only advance the goals of the Paris Agreement but also set a global benchmark for holistic and resilient shoreline management.

How to cite: Salyer, A., King, S., Jackson, A., Corbett, B., Mulcahy, M., and Lindenberg, Z.: A Framework for Coastal Resilience: Integrating Artificial Reefs, Nearshore Nourishment, Dune Management and Artificial Headlands, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-936, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-936, 2025.

Climate change and coastal development have pushed European coastal zones to a critical threshold, making urgent adaptation decisions essential. Climate services can support decision makers addressing this challenge by delivering science-based information about present days and future coastal risks due to marine flooding and sea-level rise. The European funded CoCliCo project demonstrates the feasibility of a pre-operational, broad-scale climate service considering extreme climate events aimed at supporting adaptation to sea-level rise. This core service, developed through CoCliCo, is designed to inform key users—including European and national authorities, city planners, and critical infrastructure owners—of the broad-scale risks they face. To complement this broad scale core service, downstream, user-specific services, such as high-resolution hazard and risk assessments for various adaptation options can be developed, using locally available data and models alongside CoCliCo’s broad-scale information. Research conducted through CoCliCo shows that this layered, scalable model of climate services has the potential to be expanded, including through additional climate services addressing broader challenges, including biodiversity conservation, ecosystem restoration, and resilience-focused development. While climate services are an important enabler of coastal adaptation, they cannot replace actual decisions made by public authorities and private businesses and stakeholders.

How to cite: Le Cozannet, G., Melet, A., Sayers, P., Luijendijk, A., Losada, I., Menendez, M., Nicholls, R. J., Toimil, A., Koks, E., Vafeidis, A., Hinkel, J., Lincke, D., Romao, S., Kras, E., Bascoul, V., and Thiéblemont, R.: Toward a broad scale climate service for coastal adaptation to sea-level rise in Europe: the CoCliCo project., One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-1000, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-1000, 2025.

Wetlands, mangroves, saltmarshes and seagrass pay a critical role in storing carbon, buffering storm surge, sea-level rise and erosion, filtering pollutants from land runoff, and combating marine wildlife habitat loss. Effective management and restoration of these ‘blue carbon’ ecosystems is increasingly recognised in international and scientific circles as a nature-based solution to climate change, with a range of environmental, economic and social co-benefits.

The proponents of blue carbon believe that a combination of regulatory controls and economic incentives (including in compliance and voluntary markets for carbon and biodiversity credits) can be used to support shifts away from unsustainable marine and coastal management and use commensurate with the critical and threatened existence of blue carbon ecosystems. There is growing scientific consensus about the varying ways and rates at which blue carbon ecosystems store and release atmospheric carbon, necessary for the design of any regulatory or market system. However, the design and implementation of legal and policy frameworks has been slow to follow. This is partly because there are significant legal uncertainties to confront in the design of blue carbon policy frameworks, especially in determining who has the lawful right to undertake blue carbon activities and benefit from carbon credits.

In settler-colonial contexts, such as in Aotearoa New Zealand, Indigenous and First Nations peoples have longstanding rights, interests, and relationships in marine and coastal areas, although their perspectives and positions are not always reflected in policy development discussions led by government, environmental, philanthropic, and financial sectors. In this presentation I will discuss the results of a multi-jurisdictional study of the legal challenges and opportunities for designing legal and policy frameworks for blue carbon, specifically concerning complex land and resource tenure and resource planning and consenting requirements. This research confirmed a critical need to centre justice and equity in the design of legal and policy frameworks for blue carbon, across all stages and scales, in order to avoid repeating the colonial injustices of the past.

How to cite: Macpherson, E.: Blue Carbon Futures: Are our Legal and Policy Frameworks up to the Task?, One Ocean Science Congress 2025, Nice, France, 3–6 Jun 2025, OOS2025-858, https://doi.org/10.5194/oos2025-858, 2025.