Enhancing Climate Resilience in Fisheries: Strategies for Sustainable Aquatic Ecosystems and Communities

The fisheries sector can make a significant contribution to the realization of several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 1, which aims to eradicate poverty through employment creation, and SDG 2, which focuses on ending hunger and achieving food security and improved nutrition. However, global aquatic ecosystems that support the fisheries sector are experiencing a plethora of stressors that are affecting the fundamental ecological processes within aquatic environments, as well as human societies and economies that are dependent on natural resources for nutrition, livelihood, and income. There is sufficient evidence demonstrating that climate change and human activities have significant impacts on aquatic environments and communities that depend on them. Climate change impacts aquatic ecosystems through various mechanisms, such as rising water temperatures, sea level rise, and changes in rainfall patterns. These factors exert influence over the biophysical properties of aquatic environments, chemical processes, fish physiology, fish productivity, fish habitat, species composition, and species distribution. Additionally, anthropogenic factors, including habitat degradation, pollution, overfishing, ocean acidification, and illegal and unregulated fishing practices, further contribute to the detrimental effects on fisheries, by altering fish habitat, fish stocks, fish sizes, water quality, fish health, and the overall ecological balance of aquatic environments. Consequently, these changes have direct implications for the livelihoods and food and nutrition security of communities that depend on aquatic resources. The implications are far-reaching, with the sustainability and well-being of these communities intricately tied to the state of aquatic ecosystems. Therefore, there is a need to build resilience within the aquatic socio-ecological systems, that is, enhancing the capacity of aquatic environments to withstand and adapt to disturbances, shocks, and changes while maintaining their essential functions and supporting human well-being. The adaptive capacity to stressors or shocks in aquatic ecosystems and the communities that depend on them is understudied despite their great potential to guide agents of development, practitioners, and governments in the formulation of strategies that can improve the adaptive capacity and resilience of the fisheries sector to climate change, and human-induced stressors. This special issue addresses this gap, focusing on strategies, policies, and technologies that can be employed to enhance adaptive capacity. Building resilience will contribute to aquatic biodiversity conservation and the safeguarding of livelihoods, incomes, and food and nutrition security of the fishery-dependent people and economies at large. Hence, in-depth research on how to enhance the adaptive capacity and reduce vulnerability to shocks in aquatic ecosystems and natural resources-dependent communities is still needed. Research in climate change resilience in aquatic ecosystems faces challenges such as understanding holistic resilience dynamics, identifying critical thresholds and tipping points crucial for irreversible changes, integrating management approaches that consider the multi-dimensional nature of resilience in aquatic ecosystems, overcoming data limitations, addressing policy implementation barriers, and enhancing capacity building efforts.

This research topic aims to identify key climate change stressors affecting the aquatic environments and suggest strategies and policies that can aid in combating the stressors, reduce vulnerability, and enhance adaptation in both aquatic environments and the communities that depend on them.

To gather further insights in strengthening resilience to climate change in the fisheries sector and adjacent communities, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:
- Impacts of climate change on aquatic environments (freshwater and marine)
- Management of aquatic environments
- Aquatic ecosystems and human society nexus
- Climate change adaptation in the fisheries sector
- Strategies to enhance climate resilience within aquatic environments
- Socio-economic factors and policy frameworks that influence the resilience of aquatic ecosystems
- Innovative approaches and emerging technologies in assessing and enhancing the resilience of aquatic ecosystems to climate change and human activities-related stressors.

Keywords: Aquatic Ecosystems, Climate Change Resilience, Ecosystem Services, Socio-Economic Impacts, Sustainability

Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.