Eliza Batchelder

Topic

Navigating the Social Seas: Using fuzzy cognitive mapping to understand community impacts at the intersection of offshore wind energy, fisheries, and climate change in the Gulf of Maine

School of Environmental Studies

Date & location

• Friday, September 12, 2025

• 9:00 A.M.

• David Turpin Building

• Room 255

Reviewers

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Loren McClenachan, School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria (Supervisor)

• Dr. Alison Bates, Department of Environmental Studies, Colby College (Non-Unit Member) 

External Examiner

• Dr. Steven Scyphers, School of Marine and Environmental Resiliency, University of South Alabama 

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Martin Scherwath, School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, UVic 

Abstract

Globally, as oceans warm and the rate of fishing continues to increase, the health of marine ecosystems has declined. From a community perspective, warming ocean temperatures have led to fish stocks shifting into regions that are harder to access or no longer viable for fishing, increased storm occurrence has destroyed important port infrastructure, and the adaptive capacity of fishing communities is sometimes limited. Around the globe, governments and energy developers have identified offshore wind energy generation as a viable and critical technology to aid in the transition away from fossil fuels to mitigate future climate change impacts. However, the nature of large-scale energy development projects means that the magnitude and directionality of benefits and impacts are not always well-understood at the community scale, and efforts to identify paths for coexistence among fisheries and offshore wind have been met with resistance from the fishing industry. This study aims to assess what stressors and opportunities are the most impactful to a fair future for commercial fisheries in the Gulf of Maine, where these various challenges converge. I use mental models and fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) to assess how commercial fishers and fisheries decision makers perceive the impacts from offshore wind development, climate change, and other regional stressors, and where there are areas of common prioritization. I followed the multi-step approach to cognitive mapping developed by Özesmi and Özesmi (2004) to collect and analyze mental model data. Both groups had complex understandings of what would contribute to or threaten a fair future for commercial fisheries in the Gulf of Maine. In addition to the development of new energy infrastructure in proximity to fishing grounds, respondents from both stakeholder groups indicated that fishing communities in the Gulf of Maine face a variety of changes, such as warming waters and shifting species distributions, rising costs of living, and changing gear regulations due to North Atlantic Right Whale conservation measures. These concepts frequently interact with one another in ways that reinforce or change the impact of one concept on the overall system. My results showed many similarities among stakeholder groups. Both commercial fishers and fisheries decision makers viewed access to healthy fish stocks as important for a fair future for fisheries and shared common values about the importance of preserving working waterfronts and job opportunities. Despite these commonalities, the two groups had different perceptions of what would be the primary drivers of negative or positive change. Fisheries decision makers viewed climate change, offshore wind, and stock health as equally impacting future access to fish stocks, whereas commercial fishers viewed offshore wind as the primary threat to accessing fish stocks. Although each group had unique views on the importance of climate change within the overall system, there was a common understanding that renewable energy would help address climate change and the impacts that it had on surrounding ecosystems and communities. However, fisheries decision makers were more likely than commercial fishers to view offshore wind as contributing positively to climate change, suggesting that decision makers’ and fishers' underlying definitions of sustainability were not always aligned in scale. Fisheries decision makers took a higher-level approach to achieving “sustainability” through large-scale energy development and achieving federal, if not global, climate targets, whereas fishers took an individual and community-level approach to defining what sustainability means. Additionally, fishers’ opposition to compensation packages as a means of addressing impacts from offshore wind development reinforces concerns about the distributional benefits of offshore wind projects. When considered together, my findings suggest that the regional vitality of coastal communities is being impacted by more than just offshore wind projects, and thus, proposals for financial support and equitable energy transitions should attempt to address underlying and system-wide challenges such as preserving working waterfronts, habitat restoration, affordable housing, or clean energy subsidies.