We describe The Olympic Coast as a Sentinel: Integrated Social-Ecological Regional Vulnerability Assessment to Ocean Acidification project, a place-based collaborative effort to understand, anticipate, and prepare for ocean changes affecting natural and human systems. This transdisciplinary study’s success is due to how oceanographic, ecological, and social scientists along with tribal community partners co-designed, co-produced, and actively collaborated on the project.  Participants were driven by their priorities, needs, and capacities, and brought together multiple streams of knowledge to address intersecting issues in a coupled social-ecological context. Our overarching goal was to provide an assessment of coupled social-ecological vulnerability to effects from OA based on new social science and a synthesis of existing data and model projections relevant to the Olympic Coast, its biological resources, and its inhabitants, developed in an actionable interdisciplinary approach that is 1) transferrable to other locations and 2) strengthens capacities for vulnerable place-based communities to adapt. To meet this overarching goal, we outlined eight objectives to guide our project activities and outcomes. Here we share our approach for broader application. We developed areas of strong integration, including drawing from Indigenous knowledge to inform social science understanding, and drawing on these two systems of knowledge for guiding the selection of species of focus in the biological risk assessment, with feedback to the community for preparation and adaptation actions.

Primary Presenter: Janet Newton, University of Washington (janewton@uw.edu)

Authors:

Janet Newton, University of Washington  (janewton@uw.edu)

Melissa Poe, University of Washington  ()

Samantha Siedlecki, University of Connecticut  ()

Simone Alin, NOAA PMEL  ()

Halle Berger, University of Connecticut  ()

Roxanne Carini, University of Washington  ()

Joe Schumacker, Quinault Indian Nation  ()

Russel Svec, Makah Tribe  ()

Julie Ann Koehlinger, Hoh Tribe  ()

Jennifer Hagen, Quileute Tribe  ()

Meg Chadsey, University of Washington  ()

Steve Fradkin, Olympic National Park  ()

Tommy Moore, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission  ()

Richard Feely, NOAA PMEL  ()

Jenny Waddell, Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary  ()