place of learning
The Southern Brazilian Shelf (Figure 1) consists of the Rio Grande and southeastern Brazil ecoregions described in Marine Ecoregions of the World – MEOW5.52. It extends from the southernmost tip of Brazil (Chuí) to the Cabo Frio Upwelling System (CFUS) in the state of Rio de Janeiro (northern limit). The eastern boundary is defined by depth and covers from the continental shelf (<200 m depth) to the coastline. The SBS overlaps with the focal sedimentary basin of the Brazilian National Oil and Gas Agency (ANP; http://geo.anp.gov.br/mapview), which is responsible for regulating, contracting, and monitoring the oil industry and commercial activities in the south.Brazilian Bay (SBB) Region53.
Economic activity on the Southern Brazilian Shelf is concentrated on the coast.30, a variety of uses have been established, reflecting the global situation. The main economic sectors and activities in the region are the oil and gas industry, fishing, tourism and recreation, the provision of sewage services, and coastal infrastructure. In SBS, the main industrial fishing fleets (depending on the number of fishing vessels) are otter trawls, gillnets, and traps (for demersal fisheries) and purse seines, gillnets, and surface longlines (for pelagic fisheries).53,54,55.
Integrated ecosystem assessment
Integrated ecosystem assessment (IEA) is a framework that employs a variety of tools to support ecosystem-based management, adapting to the local management context, data availability, and research focus in which it is undertaken. It has special features.56. The complete IEA cycle consists of five iterative steps.twenty five: scoping, indicator development, risk analysis, management scenarios, and evaluation. Here we present details and results of the initial risk assessment and scoping stage, which gathered information about the state of the ecosystem and the pressures exerted by human activities (Figure 5).
Scoping and risk assessment contribute to various stages throughout the IEA.
scoping
Conceptual models are valuable tools that facilitate adequate representation of complex social-ecological systems, depicting their components, processes, and interactions.57,58. This first step of the IEA consists of identifying the relevant subcomponents of the ecosystem.twenty five. This therefore includes the identification of all human-related activities that impact the ecosystem and the pressures these activities exert on the ecosystem and its subcomponents. Therefore, we performed a semi-quantitative risk assessment to identify the relationships between economic sectors, pressures, and ecological components of the SBS social-ecological system.34. The initial list of sectors, pressures and ecological factors was developed as part of the Mission Atlantic project and built on an adaptation of the ODEMM and AQUACROSS approaches.27,59 To enable further comparisons between different ecosystems, including the Mission Atlantic case study33. Regional adaptation to the SBS case study consisted of the removal of some sectors and ecological elements that are not representative within the region (e.g. renewable energy and deep sea ecosystems, respectively). The entire scoping process consists of linkage chain network development, pressure assessment, risk assessment, bibliographic review, and stakeholder validation.
Development of linkage chain network
The first step in developing the risk assessment framework was to identify the key elements that make up the social-ecological system and their interactions. To do so, we established the following linkage matrix. (1) Link pressures with different economic sectors and human activities. (2) linking pressures to the ecological components affected by them; (3) linking economic sectors and human activities to ecological factors; Each cell of the matrix describes the potential impact on an ecological component from a sector. Pressure is a mechanism by which direct effects occur, the so-called chain.34. This phase focuses on the connections between sectors, pressures and ecological factors that are relevant and currently established in the region.60,61,62. A list of sectors, pressures, and ecological components identified as relevant to the SBS research area is provided in Table 3. See Supplementary Tables 1–3 for a complete description of sectors, pressures, and ecological components.
To ensure a broad and comprehensive perspective, a series of expert opinion panels were conducted to determine the presence or absence of interactions between the assessment variables within the framework (Table 1). The panel consisted of 20 people from three different institutions (Universidad Federal de Santa Catarina – UFSC, University of São Paulo – USP, Almirante Paulo Moreira Marine Institute – IEAPM) with different disciplinary backgrounds to ensure the inclusion of diverse knowledge and perspectives. Comprised of top experts. (See Supplementary Table 4).
Each of the 5,472 potential connections between components was examined to establish direct links between sectors, pressures, and ecological components occurring within the SBS. This process was based on expert knowledge and, where available, incorporated quantitative and qualitative data from specific references supporting the association. The metadata of the referenced bibliographic materials were stored in the project's relational database for further reference and validation.
pressure evaluation
After the bonds were identified, the relative importance of these bonds was established by scoring each bond chain. Scores were assigned using three criteria. (1) Spatial extent. Consider whether the pressure occurs over a wide area or at a local or field scale. (2) Frequency of occurrence. Pressure is classified as persistent, common, occasional, or rare. (3) Degree of Impact (DoI) indicating whether the pressure is acute/severe, chronic or low (Table 4). Standardized values were applied to each level of the three criteria.34, each classified qualitative category was replaced by its respective standardized quantitative value (Table 4). Score values are derived based on expert judgment and supplemented by the best available knowledge.27,60thus representing a reliable measure.
Risk assessment (also called scoring phase – Figure 5)
The final stage of the IEA's scoping stage was a risk assessment. The values assigned during the pressure assessment were used to calculate the risk of impact (IR), which is a function of the overlap score, frequency score, and degree of impact (DoI) score.
$${IR}={Overlap}\,{Score}\times {Frequency}\,{Score}\times {DoI}\,{Score}$$
Impact risk (IR) is understood as the potential for negative environmental impacts caused by a sector/pressure.14,34,61. This study focused on synthesizing the current status of sectors and pressures acting on coastal and marine ecosystems in the study area. Risk values were log-transformed for better comparison. Total risk was used to rank IRs and examine the relative contribution of each group to the overall risk score. Although the number of impact chains can affect the total, cumulative risk is important here and we chose to use it in the ranking process to avoid methodological bias.26,33. We then used network plots (Sankey plots) connecting interactions to represent the relationships between sectors, ecological factors, and pressures.
Additionally, “proportional connectivity” values were calculated as the number of linkages associated with each sector/pressure/ecological component divided by the total number of linkages. These values reveal how each evaluated chain is “connected.”33. The calculations are based on a script developed in “R” from the Mission Atlantic project (https://github.com/missionatlantic/MissionAtlantic-RISK-Analysis).
Bibliographic review
Throughout the evaluation, data searches and literature reviews were performed to support the process. Approximately 223 documents were reviewed and used to support link establishment and scoring of those links. Previous studies describing the impacts of different sectors on the ecological components of the SBS study area were used to support and strengthen the expert assessment. Then, depending on the degree of information available, from no specific expertise (very low confidence), through specific expertise, world literature, regional literature, to regional data and monitoring of SBS research. , each chain of chain was assigned a trust level. Area (very high confidence). The category assigned to your score depends on the available data. For example, in the fisheries sector, there is data monitoring and regional literature at the regional level. Harvesting/collection, on the other hand, had little monitoring and had to rely more on local literature and specific expert opinion.
Verification of stakeholders
The results of the scoping process were presented to stakeholders in a dedicated workshop. Participants were chosen to represent the variety of human activities considered in the analysis. At the workshop, the results were presented, discussed with participants, and validated. Due to the Sars-Covid-19 pandemic, stakeholder workshops had to be conducted online. Thirty-five community stakeholders were invited, and a total of 29 people from a variety of backgrounds and institutions participated in the workshop. Twenty-one representatives from government agencies including tourism, infrastructure, fisheries, marine aquaculture, conservation, water and defence, attended. 4 people from NGOs, 1 person from fishing industry, 1 person from tourism (economic sector), and 2 people from researchers.
The conference began with a presentation of the Mission Atlantic project, followed by an explanation of the methodology and initial results, including all sectors, pressures and ecological components, highlighting key sectors involved in the most relevant pressures in SBS. The focus was on. Participants were surveyed to see if there were any missing departments, pressures, or factors that should be included in the evaluation. This was followed by a question-and-answer session and discussion. Participants were then divided into three breakout groups according to their expertise to further discuss the most impactful sectors identified in the risk assessment.
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a.
Fisheries
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b.
Land-based industries, wastewater treatment, and coastal infrastructure (grouped due to common land-based origin)
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c.
tourism and recreation
Finally, the main issues discussed in the breakout sessions were presented in the plenary session for further discussion to identify knowledge gaps and discuss management objectives, requirements, and emerging issues.
