Assessing the socio-economic implications of climate change (coral bleaching) in the Great Barrier Reef catchment: Synthesis Report

Synthesis Report

R. L. Miles, S. Kinnear, C. Marshal, G. O'Dea and L. Greer

Institute for Sustainable Regional Development (ISRD), Central Queensland University

ISBN 9781921359316
Published September 2009

MTSRF Project 2.5i.4 - Tools to support resilience-based management in the face of climate change

Extract from Executive Summary

This report provides an integrated assessment of the potential socio-economic impacts of climate change (specifically coral bleaching) on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Queensland, Australia.  It covers three research phases, these being:

1. A literature review of:

   • Published research on the known and anticipated biological and productivity changes on coral reefs due to climate change;

   • The projected impages of cliamte change on the Great Barrier Reef, specifically; and

   • An analysis of socioeconomic impact assessment methods that could potentially be applied to assess the climate change impacts (coral bleaching) on the GBR

2. A  socio-economic characterisation for three regions in the GBR catchment (Cairns, Townsville and Mackay-Whitsunday); and

3. The results of focus group workshops (with regional planners and local government), together with a business survey and with detailed phone interviews (for businesses in target regions). These aimed to assess the socioeconomic implications of climate change on the GBR.

The work presented in this report sought to answer three key questions:

• What is the current knowledge of and likely impacts from climate change on reef based communities? (via the literature review);

• How are communities currently placed with respect to potential risk and response? (via the socio-economic characterisation); and

• What are the perceived threats to communities and businesses and what are current stakeholder attitudes to risk and response to climate change? (via business surveys and focus groups).

This research forms one component of a larger research program funded by the Australian Government's Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility (MTSRF). This 'parent' program is directed toward developing tools to support resilience-based management, as well as contributing to an atlas of climate change risk and resilience for the socio-economic and ecological systems of the GBR. Thus, the next stage of this work will be to synthesise the findings from this component with those from research projects carried out by the CSIRO and Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) under the parent program.  This will contribute toward the building a Bayesian Belief Network model and provide for the subsequent development and prioritisation of management responses to climate change, and ultimately, the creation of an atlas of climate change risk and resilience for the GBR social-ecological system.