A diversity of market options is also a key flexibility 
strategy for fisheries and aquaculture companies. Many 
large- and small-scale fisheries stakeholders highlighted 
the importance of the flexibility to fish new species and 
to invest in new onshore food processing technologies. 
In the large boat sector, companies with several vessels 
and integrated onshore processing have several flexibil- 
ity options in place. In bad weather, catcher-processor 
trawlers need to find shelter close to the shore without 
coming to harbor, and while they wait for the weather to 
ımprove they might keep on processing the last catch. 
Fresh fish trawlers that deliver to onshore processing 
quite often have to adapt to the weather. Thus, for 
example, they might start trips a day earlier or use bad 
weather days for landing and then return to the grounds 
when the weather calms down. Again, accurate weather 
forecasting is crucial to make it possible for the trawlers 
co use weather windows. There is a partially coordinated 
effort in larger companies, where the shore-based fleet 
manager monitors temperature and wind speed, and 
with accurate forecasts the company has four to five 
days’ warning of bad storms and therefore has time to 
make needed changes. 
Mitigations within companies and between sectors. In 
a local processing plant, there is a special fund to support 
the processing plant workers if there is a work shortage 
due to an inadequate supply of fish. For every fiscal year, 
during the first three days of a work stoppage due to low 
fish supply, the processing plant workers get paid full 
salary. After those three days, the company’s special 
fund kicks in and the people get paid 40 to 50 percent 
of their full salary while there are no fish. In one example 
from many years ago, the fund kicked in because the 
fishers could not fish for over twenty consecutive days 
because the cod stock was low. This was not related to 
:he weather, but several informants noted that this spe- 
cial fund could be used as a buffer if increased stormi- 
ness leads to raw material shortages for the local 
processing plants. 
Knowledge exchange and cooperation among marine 
industries is already present and was also suggested as 
a future strategy to support traditional capture fisheries 
in the process of adapting to changing storminess. In 
one example of cooperation between large and small 
boat processing companies, if one processing plant 
does not have the necessary raw materials, they can get 
supplies from the other in a special agreement falling 
under the fisheries management rules on special com- 
munity quota. Therefore, when the small boats cannot 
fish and supply fish to their processing plant, the large 
boats that can still fish in severe weather can supply raw 
material to the small processing plant. 
ARCTIC, ANTARCTIC, AND ALPINE RESEARCH © 
J 
Discussion 
Planning in uncertainty and the importance of 
Aexibility 
Though the models produced for this study represent 
he best available projections for storminess in Icelandic 
waters, climate projections, as previously mentioned, are 
always accompanied by a particular level of uncertainty. 
The greater the uncertainty about the future is, the 
harder it is for managers to respond flexibly to large 
and unexpected shocks (Grafton 2010). This study 
:evealed that uncertainty around the compounded 
"mpacts of storms and climate change persists and that 
potential interactions among the different impacts are 
still poorly understood. This is in line with other recent 
studies around the world (Turner, McConney, and 
Monnereau 2020; Heck, Beck, and Reguero 2021). To 
date, the interplay between changing storminess and 
other impacts of climate change and how this interplay 
affects marine ecosystems remain largely unexplored 
and would require a sophisticated interdisciplinary 
effort (Sainsbury et al. 2018). 
Furthermore, it remains difficult to predict how peo- 
ple, economies, and the ecosystems they depend on 
night respond to changes in the climate. Informants, 
for example, mentioned their concerns regarding chan- 
ging governmental regulations and a predicted impaired 
‚unctionality of the fisheries management system that 
night result from the compounded effects of climate 
change impacts. Current research suggests that fisheries 
management tools like ITQ will most likely not be 
sufficient on their own and/or in their current state 
:O support sustainable fisheries through increasing cli- 
matic and nonclimatic stressors (Grafton 2010; Young 
et al. 2018). It is becoming increasingly important to 
develop strategies that account for climate change- 
‚nduced uncertainty. Decision making in uncertain 
conditions requires that new information and circum- 
stances feed back into an adaptive process to produce 
adaptive responses (Grafton 2010). These adaptive 
zesponses, as outlined by Grafton (2010), can include 
(1) risk sharing, a process that was also mentioned by 
he managing director of the aquaculture company, 
whereby fishers mitigate shocks via cooperation; (2) 
avoidance, whereby fishing communities are provided 
with constantly improved weather information and 
forecasting systems; (3) development of planning 
approaches that go beyond day-to-day operational 
lanning; and (4) bridging knowledge gaps by sharing 
information among stakeholders, involving local 
xnowledge in decision-making processes, and increas- 
ing knowledge in terms of predictions and forecasts 
(Grafton 2010).