Climate change implications for fisheries and aquaculture – Overview of current scientific knowledge

Consolidated inventory of SEARCA publications/projects and AJAD articles relevant to climate change and aquaculture/fisheries, extended with FAO, peer-reviewed and country-level evidence.

SEARCA publications, Discussion Papers, Briefs/Notes, Case Story Series, projects, and AJAD articles found through SEARCA/AJAD pages.

Aquaculture/fisheries/coastal-climate outputs explicitly listed on SEARCA’s former Umbrella Program on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation for Southeast Asia page, including CChAM-supported dissertations, learning events, SFRT projects, AJAD articles and Agriculture and Development Notes.

FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture; FAO Climate Change; Guidelines for Sustainable Aquaculture; COFI/Sub-Committee on Aquaculture; and official FAO Open Knowledge resources.

Recent peer-reviewed literature prioritising Southeast Asia and the Philippines, plus systematic and global reviews useful for the conceptual and evidence framework.

Explicitly addresses aquaculture/fisheries and climate change, climate adaptation, or climate resilience.

Addresses coastal climate risks, salinity, integrated rice–aquaculture, or aquatic livelihoods with strong relevance to aquaculture adaptation.

Useful for ecosystem-based fisheries governance, broader climate-resilience framing or sector baselines, but not specifically climate–aquaculture.

This is a curated, evidence-based inventory rather than a claim that every publication containing a climate/fisheries keyword has been captured.

Aquaculture Adaptation to Climate Change in Southeast Asia (2024-152) is completed; AquASEAN (2025-180) is active through November 2027.

Twenty further resources were added to target the country-coverage gaps flagged in Section 3 (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, Timor-Leste), plus two additional Indonesia entries and two ASEAN/SEAFDEC regional policy resources.

Seven inventory sheets — SEARCA Climate-Aquaculture, CChAM Inventory, FAO Inventory, Expanded Resource Matrix, Peer-Reviewed Matrix, SEA Country Publications and Regional Coverage Additions — were merged into the Master Matrix: 145 source rows reduced to 107 unique records, grouped as Global & Institutional (26), SEARCA & CChAM (24), Regional & Comparative Research (9) and Country Evidence (48). Source sheets are retained unchanged for reference.

Twenty-three resources on circular aquaculture innovation in Southeast Asia were added as a new Master Matrix category, Circular Aquaculture Innovation (rows 109-131): regional partnerships and projects (AquASEAN, CIRAD, WorldFish CAINA, EU SAFE), peer-reviewed research on circular economy, IMTA, nutrient and sediment recycling, integrated rice-shrimp and mangrove-shrimp silvofishery, insect and alternative aquafeeds, FAO policy instruments (SOFIA 2024, Blue Transformation Roadmap 2022-2030), open datasets (WorldFish Dataverse, 30 m coastal aquaculture pond dataset) and learning materials (SEAFDEC/AQD training courses, WAS and Global Seafood Alliance primers). Total records: 130. Each entry carries a source note on its Publication cell.

Master resource matrix for climate change and aquaculture, with emphasis on Southeast Asia and policy-relevant evidence.

FAO Aqua-Adapt; FAO climate-policy/NDC resources; FAO fisheries and aquaculture climate syntheses.

SEARCA/CChAM and SEARCA aquaculture projects for Southeast Asian empirical and policy evidence.

WorldFish/CGIAR and NACA for applied aquaculture adaptation, technology, health, biosecurity and decision support.

Use IPCC for authoritative evidence on warming, extreme events, ocean/coastal change, vulnerability and adaptation.

Use ADB and World Bank for investment, climate finance, blue economy and resilience economics; ASEAN and ASEAN-SEAFDEC for regional policy alignment.

1) Climate hazards; 2) impacts on aquaculture; 3) adaptation; 4) mitigation; 5) socioeconomic resilience; 6) policy and governance; 7) gaps and research priorities.

climate-resilient aquaculture; climate-smart aquaculture; aquaculture adaptation; aquaculture climate risk; salinity aquaculture; rice-shrimp climate; Mekong aquaculture; blue foods climate change; aquaculture NDC; aquaculture NAP; aquaculture climate finance.

Direct = explicitly links aquaculture/fisheries and climate change/adaptation. Adjacent = strong relevance through coastal, salinity, aquatic-food or ecosystem systems. Contextual = broader scientific or policy foundation.

The master matrix should cover all 11 Southeast Asian countries: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Viet Nam. The Philippines should not dominate the evidence base.

Country coverage is uneven. Viet Nam and the Philippines have the strongest climate–aquaculture evidence; Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Timor-Leste require deeper targeted searches.

SEARCA’s 2013 review explicitly covers all 11 Southeast Asian countries and provides a useful regional climate/agriculture baseline. SEAFDEC’s 2023 fisheries statistics also cover the 11-country region, although Timor-Leste did not submit statistics.

Country-specific resources were compiled across all 11 Southeast Asian countries. Where direct climate–aquaculture literature is sparse (especially Brunei Darussalam and Timor-Leste), national/sector baseline resources are included and clearly classified as contextual rather than direct.