Aquaculture is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change including heatwaves, extreme weather events, ocean acidification, deoxygenation, and sea level rise . Vulnerability to climate change is heightened in marine aquaculture operations where fish grown in open net pen cages are exposed to the surrounding environment, and climate stressors can have impacts on production. However, climate change is not the first challenge to be encountered by the aquaculture industry, which has adapted to many different system stressors including disease events, regulatory changes, and supply chain shocks, amongst others. These events provide an opportunity to learn from the capacity of the industry to respond to previous responses and stressors and apply that understanding to climate change adaptation planning.
Through literature review and interviews with key informants, a timeline o f significant aquaculture system stressors and responses was developed. This timeline is then used to analyse the adaptive capacity of the industry . Early assets-based theories of adaptive capacity assume that adaptation is a function of access to material and social capital , but these theories do not explain how adaptation is practiced or what is needed to turn adaptive capacity into action. Therefore, this analysis of adaptation in salmon farming considers adaptations to system stressors that have already occurred , identifying both internal and external enablers and barriers to adaptation using a Political, Economic, Social, Technological, and Environmental (PESTLE) framework. Analysis of previous responses to system stressors is then applied to an assessment of adaptive capacity in the context of climate change, and potential barriers and enabling factors for the mobilization of adaptive capacity into adaptation are identified.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (MR/V021613/1).