Exploring unintended outcomes and trade-offs of climate adaptation for human well-being, using qualitative network models (QNMs)

Adaptation to climate change can have trade-offs and unintended outcomes that may add to climate impacts. Identifying how these consequences arise in local contexts is an important step in climate adaptation planning, but the tools for doing so are still evolving. We demonstrate how social-ecological qualitative network models (QNMs) can be used to explore the consequences of climate adaptation in fisheries. Drawing on the dynamics of the U.S. West Coast Dungeness crab fishery, we simulate a climate-intensified harmful algal bloom in a model fishing community and compare outcomes for human well-being, with and without climate adaptation. We consider a range of climate adaptations, from coping mechanisms to transformational adaptation, based on actions identified during participatory scenario planning. We first use QNMs to identify how common trade-offs arise across adaptation strategies, specifically highlighting how diverse strategies focusing on material loss result in persistent negative outcomes for community relationships and culture. We then explore alternative configurations of model structure to understand how plausible diversity in a social-ecological system can contribute to unintended, inequitable outcomes from climate adaptation. In our QNMs, altering in-season flexibility (fishers’ capacity to increase effort in alternative fisheries not affected by a harmful algal bloom) greatly influenced the degree to which climate adaptation reduced or intensified harmful algal bloom impacts on well-being. We demonstrate that QNMs are a useful tool for climate adaptation planning because they can be used to explore common trade-offs across adaptation options; highlight potentially inequitable outcomes associated with system complexity and uncertainties; and direct future research and monitoring priorities to help early identification of unintended consequences.

Climate change adaptation · coping strategies · harmful algal blooms · human well-being · inequity · participatory scenario planning · social-ecological systems · trade-offs · transformative adaptation · Unintended consequences · West Coast United States · Coastal and Marine Management · Marine and fisheries research · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance