PhD Oral Defence: The Arctic Ocean under multiple pressures: Linking impacts on marine ecosystem processes, ecosystem services, and human well-being
PhD Oral Defence of Marianne Falardeau-Côté, Natural Resource Sciences
The rate of Arctic warming is two to three times more rapid than the global average, leading to a cascade of impacts onto Arctic marine ecosystems. Changing marine ecosystems can, in turn, alter the supply of ecosystem services (ES; the benefits humans obtain from ecosystems) that are vital to coastal communities of the circumpolar North, such as food provision and opportunities for cultural engagement with the seascape. Arctic Indigenous and local communities are thus facing a changing environment that challenges their well-being and cultures. Understanding how climate change and other anthropogenic pressures are impacting marine ecosystem, the ES they provide, and the human well-being that depends on these ES, requires that we consider the Arctic as a coupled social-ecological system (SES). An SES lens can help to grasp impacts that flow from ecological to social components and back - such as how sea ice decline affects wildlife and the people who rely on marine foods - thus providing key insights that can inform adaptation and management.
In this thesis, I study how climate change and marine developments are, and will be, affecting Arctic marine ecosystem processes, ES, and human well-being. I achieved this by adapting an SES lens to the marine Arctic, which I applied through transdisciplinary approaches that crossed disciplinary and academic boundaries. I also built on existing research and the knowledge gained from this transdisciplinary study to explore ways forward for integrated research and management in the changing Arctic. My doctoral research provides new insights into the ongoing and future impacts of anthropogenic pressures on Arctic marine SES and proposes a set of transdisciplinary methods that others could build upon to advance comprehensive understanding of Arctic change.