Fisheries Climate Survey Report FINAL - Flipbook - Page 12
Survey respondents who somewhat or strongly agreed with the statement “climate change will harm me
personally” were found to have lower adaptive capacity scores relative to those who disagreed or felt neutral
about the statement (Figure 7a). Respondents who reported to be somewhat or very concerned about fisheries
regulations also had lower adaptive capacity scores (Figure 7b).
Figure 7. Distribution of adaptive capacity based on (A) a respondent’s
level of agreement, from strongly agree (blue) to strongly disagree
(red), with the statement “Climate change will harm me personally”,
and (B) level of concern regarding fisheries regulations.
VULNERABILITY OF NEW ENGLAND
SEAFOOD HARVESTERS
Vulnerability was assessed based on the responses to questions exploring exposure (Figure 2), sensitivity
(Figure 3), and adaptive capacity (Figure 6) to climate change. Perceptions of climate vulnerability were
compared across a variety of factors, including the species targeted by survey respondents, to understand
how vulnerability varies in the Northeast.
Survey respondents who recognize the threat of climate change had higher vulnerability scores than those who
do not acknowledge that threat (Figure 8). Regression analyses indicated that those respondents who strongly
agree that climate change is occurring had significantly higher vulnerability scores than those who are neutral
on that statement (p-value