Costa Rica Case Study
In Costa Rica, the Partnership will explore the nexus of agriculture intensification and nature-based restoration of coastal small-scale fisheries.
Overview
Golfo de Nicoya case study: Nexus of land use and nature-based solutions for coastal small-scale fisheries under different climate change scenarios
Project Updates
Q4 2024
- Tayler’s team is progressing with river modeling and social workshops for their case study.
Q3 2024
- Biannual Solving-FCB meeting to be held in Costa Rica, Feb 10-13, 2025.
- Updates were provided on the upcoming meeting, scheduled for February 2025.
- The agenda will likely span four days, including a field trip to a Costa Rican case study site.
- A modeling workshop will be integrated into the agenda, with Solen leading the organization.
- Dedicated spaces and time slots for early career researcher discussions and networking will be provided.
- The meeting aims to produce tangible outputs, such as collaborative project ideas and potential publications.
Q2 2024
- Astrid and Senakpon are collaborating on workshops using the same methodology.
- Three presentations have been made regarding research results from Solving FCB.
- The Gulf region faces data deficiency regarding climate projections and satellite information.
- They aim to understand the impact of climate change on ocean fishery resources and biodiversity.
- There is a need to establish a working group to link climate change impacts with social impacts.
- The Methods team has experience in environmental data but less in marine data.
- Costa Rica and South African teams, with Senakpon, Andrea, and Laura, coordinate the project’s futures methods section.
- Fieldwork has commenced with methods coordinated between the two case studies.
- A meeting with Ayodele focused on understanding gender approach differences and complementarities.
- Facilitation of meetings and workshops between teams is considered beneficial.
Q1 2024
- Dr. Ingo Wehrtmann participated in January 2024 as invited speaker in a bimodal panel discussion organized by The Diplomatic Academy of Foreign Service Manuel María de Peralta, San José, Costa Rica, in order to present a summary of the FCB-project as well as on overview of the case study in the Golfo de Nicoya, Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Numerous representatives of the diplomatic corps in Costa Rica attended this activity in person plus almost 120 people connected via Internet. Find out more.
- The University of Costa Rica has approved the project, providing funding for salaries.
- A new student has joined the team, focusing primarily on water quality modeling and scenario development aligned with project goals.
- The team has actively engaged in outreach activities.
Q4 2023
- University of Costa Rica approved project; finally received funding
- Astrid – is working on gender perspectives
- Ingo Wehrtmann > is working with NGOs
- Tayler Clarke:
- they found new modeling partners > a group of researchers and a PhD student
- PhD student will put together a hydrological model > next step is to plug into climate model > and then integrate hydrological model with Gulf of Nicoya and river system to begin land-sea connection modeling
- the project team is now working together with NGOs
- modeling = key theme
- Cristina / Juliano / Tayler
- starting a Lenfest project
- https://www.lenfestocean.org/en/research-projects/fostering-climate-resilient-biodiversity-and-fisheries-in-eastern-tropical-pacific-mpas
- climate science > inform management
- Costa Rica is a key country
- MPAs – in Eastern Tropical Pacific
- climate science – inform management
- Cristina (is translating science into policy)
- she’s involved in an ESMO project
- CMT – Germany
- talks about nutrition (and how climate change impacts)
Case Study Objectives
- Explore the effect of land use and climate change on coastal ecosystems and fisheries in the Gulf of Nicoya and elucidate the implications of this link for climate policies, food security, sustainable fisheries and agriculture management.
- Co-develop potential land and ocean nature-based climate solutions for coastal fishing communities in the Gulf of Nicoya.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of these potential land and ocean nature-based climate solutions under future social-economic and policy scenarios.
- Develop and apply decision support tools to elucidate the most effective and acceptable adaptation options.
- Develop a mixed hydroclimatic and socioeconomic predictive model to identify potential high-risk areas for food insecurity in the Gulf of Nicoya, to support the co-creation of policy guidelines aimed at reducing vulnerability to food insecurity
Golfo de Nicoya case study site
- Source-to-Sea approach
- Water quantity + quality
- Future scenarios
- Impact assessment on fisheries
- Food security
- Nutrition
Methodology
Work Packages
WP 1 – PhD: Remotely sensed historic land use change and Gulf of Nicoya impacts
WP 2 – PhD: Hydrological and water quality modelling
WP 3 – PhD: Future water quantity and quality projections
WP 4 – PhD: Source-to-sea with ocean current modeling
WP 5: Future food security scenarios and adaptation strategies
WP 6: Changing biodiversity and fisheries in the Gulf of Nicoya
WP 7: Ecosystem-level climate impacts on the Gulf of Nicoya
WP 8: Apply a deliberative monetary valuation as a participatory tool for informing small-scale fisheries (SSF) stakeholder preferences in addressing food-climate-biodiversity challenges and their implications for human well-being
WP 9: Collaboratively develop a diagnosis of the current situation, priorities, plausible nature-based solutions and social ecological feasibility (trade-offs) of management scenarios for sustainable transformation within small-scale fisheries, in the context of the ocean-land nexus
WP 10: Prioritize the needs, values and interests of plural voices (plural valuation of ecosystems), especially underrepresented SSF stakeholders, for a transformative and gender equitable approach to climate resilience
WP 11: Project changes in ecological, social and economic indicators under different land use, climate changes scenarios and adaptation strategies proposed by fishers
WP 12: Apply storytelling and decision support tools to identify scenarios and adaptation strategies that may lead to desirable futures.
Team
Christian Birkel
University of Costa Rica
Ingo Wehrtmann
University of Costa Rica
Tayler Clarke
University of British Columbia
Astrid Sánchez
University of Costa Rica
Partners
