Current climate and coastal resilience efforts at the federal, state, and local levels work to address and communicate the impacts from climate change. These impacts include the increase in frequency and intensity of storms, degraded water quality, variable salinity and dissolved oxygen, and increased inundation, which directly and indirectly effect the shellfish aquaculture industry. The impacts to the shellfish aquaculture industry include suitability of shellfish for harvest, mortality, public health risks (i.e., increased occurrences of Vibrio outbreaks from shellfish consumption), and disruption to shellfish markets. Climate change also directly impacts management of the shellfish aquaculture industry and long-term planning.
Building resilience is an iterative process that requires planning, responding to an event, recovering, and adapting. When building resilience, planning can include improving forecasts and observation models, connecting decision makers with information, and incorporating green infrastructure. Responding to a disaster can include immediate damage assessments and pollution responses. Recovering and adapting can include assessing damage to communities, economies, and the environment, issuing grants to rebuild and restore habitat, and providing data and tools for analysis . Resilient coastal ecosystems and communities require building back better and stronger in preparation for future conditions, instead of planning for present conditions.
An important component to developing a resilient N.C. shellfish aquaculture industry will be to incorporate these iterative processes and resilience extension best practices for communication and engagement . Sea Grant resilience extension specialists connect climate change science with decision makers and help translate information in ways that are understandable and useful for coastal residents, businesses, and communities. This requires time and the building of trust, while engaging stakeholders and scientists in the framing of critical research questions that are necessary for useful information transfer. These proven efforts in resilience communication and engagement can be adapted and used as a template for the shellfish aquaculture industry.