Identification

Title

Building ocean acidification research and policy capacity in the wider Caribbean region: A case study for advancing regional resilience

Abstract

To meet scientific, policy, and community goals, there is a critical need to strengthen research capacity, increase monitoring, and inform adaptation and mitigation policies to enhance resilience against ocean acidification (OA) and associated multi-stressors in the Caribbean. In 2023, an OA Needs Based Assessment survey of ocean professionals was conducted, engaging 59 participants from across the wider Caribbean to evaluate regional challenges and opportunities in OA research and monitoring. To understand differences in OA research capacity related to training and funding, we divide the respondents into four groups: those that have received 1) training and funding, 2) training only, 3) funding only, and 4) neither training nor funding. Results indicate regional strengths include awareness of local oceanic conditions, access to nearshore sites, and strong social support networks in ocean research. Regional barriers include limited technical capacity and funding to conduct oceanographic research and monitoring, and in particular, carbonate measurements. The four training and funding groups vary significantly, suggesting that access to training and funding are important factors to increasing the amount of access that respondents have to different types of equipment, the number of different types of measurements they conduct, the number of different habitats they research, and the amount of experience they have conducting OA research. This study also demonstrates the community-led efforts to address local OA challenges by presenting a case study on the formation of the Global Ocean Acidification Network (GOA-ON) OA Caribbean Hub that was founded by local leaders (co-authors of this study) who were inspired through the survey process and engagement that was conducted by co-authors. This study provides examples of avenues and challenges to build OA capacity for research and monitoring from the ground up within the wider Caribbean to advance towards global sustainability goals.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d70p14gb

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2025-06-09T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

<span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;font-style:normal;" data-sheets-root="1">Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</span>

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact