Bridging the gap between climate change and maritime security: Towards a comprehensive framework for planning

Area of Science:

• Maritime security and climate change adaptation
• Ocean governance and risk assessment
• Environmental science and socio-economic impacts

Background:

• Recognized need to protect maritime interests, combat sea-based crime, and conserve marine resources for two decades.
• Climate change, coastal vulnerability, and maritime criminality are interconnected, requiring integrated ocean governance.
• Complex interactions necessitate a robust methodological framework for effective decision-making in marine management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose an adaptive methodological framework for managing the interplay between climate change and maritime criminality.
• To leverage existing tools for spatial risk evaluation and informed decision-making in ocean governance.
• To provide a structured approach for comparing mitigation and adaptation strategies against maritime crime under climate change.

Main Methods:

• Adaptation of Cumulative Effect Assessments (CEAs) to manage uncertainties and dependencies.
• Application of CEAs for spatially explicit risk evaluations of climate change impacts and maritime criminality.
• Integration of Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) to support and expedite decision-making processes.

Main Results:

• Cumulative Effect Assessments provide a solid basis for understanding the magnitude and directionality of impacts.
• Spatially explicit risk evaluations can be generated by adapting existing uncertainty-management tools.
• Multi-Criteria Decision Making enhances the speed and quality of informing decision-makers.

Conclusions:

• An adaptive framework, building on Cumulative Effect Assessments and Multi-Criteria Decision Making, is essential for ocean governance.
• This framework facilitates the comparison of mitigation and adaptation actions for tackling maritime crime in a changing climate.
• Effective responses to maritime crime require accounting for the complex interactions between climate change and socio-economic factors.