This report summarises the projected changes in ocean chemistry for the Pacific island region (from 130°E to 130°W and 25°N to 25°S) at regional and sub-regional scales, assessing the vulnerability of Pacific coastal and oceanic habitats and fisheries to ocean acidification using an established framework, and discussing the implications for the Pacific island communities dependent on fisheries and aquaculture for food security and livelihood
A major objective of this report was to develop a regional assessment of Pacific Island sensitivity to projected
climate change as a component of the Pacific-Australia Climate Change Science and Adaptation Planning
(PACCSAP) program. The PACCSAP Program is intended to help partner countries including Cook Islands, Fiji,
Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa,
Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu and their communities better understand and respond to climate associated impacts.
AquaMaps are computer-generated predictions of natural occurrence of marine species, based on the environmental tolerance of a given species with respect to depth, salinity, temperature, primary productivity, and its association with sea ice or coastal areas. These 'environmental envelopes' are matched against an authority file which contains respective information for the Oceans of the World. Independent knowledge such as distribution by FAO areas or bounding boxes are used to avoid mapping species in areas that contain suitable habitat, but are not occupied by the species.