Addressing Challenges of Coastal Communities through Ocean Research for Developing Economies (ACCORD).

Addressing Challenges of Coastal Communities through Ocean Research for Developing Economies (ACCORD). The coastal and marine environments of South East Asia and the Western Indian Ocean (the regional foci of ACCORD) are rich and diverse, possessing high levels of biodiversity and productivity. These regions also have hydrate-bearing seafloor sediments and seafloor mineral resources. Coastal ecosystems and the services they provide are under threat from growth in human activities, including the demands of increasing population size (globally, 2 billion people live within 100km of the coast) and global markets, the desire for economic growth, and the less direct impact of global climate change. This affects both the resilience of living resources to pressures and the ecosystem services we derive from them. Many coastal communities depend on nearby coastal and marine resources for their livelihoods and welfare yet lack alternatives when these services deteriorate due to over-exploitation or adverse effects of climate change. A the same time coastal developing nations are looking to the ocean to provide opportunities for sustainable economic growth through resource exploitation (e.g. mineral extraction) and livelihood diversification (e.g. tourism, aquaculture, and blue carbon initiatives) and to support food security (e.g. fisheries and aquaculture). For developing coastal nations the ocean is also an opportunity for diversification of their economies through the production of clean, renewable and unconventional energy and resource exploitation, yet these opportunities need to be balanced carefully against the need to protect habitats and preserve the total value of national resources. The concept of Blue Economy integrates ocean-based economic activities with conservation and sustainable use through effective marine planning. We identify two overarching development challenges: a) Sustainable growth of, and resilience to change for, the blue economies of partner countries and b) Resilience to natural hazards including impact-based, climate-proof coastal flood warning systems. Our aim is to deliver high quality science outcomes required to improve the environmental information available to support these challenges in coastal states on the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) list of Official Development Aid (ODA) recipients. Identifying and protecting critical habitats from overexploitation, and degradation is the cornerstone of the integrated ocean management required for sustainable blue economies. ACCORD will achieve this firstly by understanding the mechanisms and processes that determine the potential sensitivity or resilience of marine ecosystems to both globally and locally induced environmental change. Secondly, we will use this understanding to determine the environmental and societal consequences of ecosystem change to inform risk assessment, adaptive spatial management and mitigation strategies. Our approach will provide partner countries with an improved capability for integrated and sustainable management of marine activities. This capability will help partner countries to build a resilient marine and coastal socio-ecological system, and support their growing Blue Economies.