Assessing seagrass climate risk and biodiversity vulnerability to support marine spatial planning in Indonesia

Seagrass ecosystems support marine biodiversity, coastal resilience, and climate regulation, but are increasingly exposed to climate change and anthropogenic pressures. Indonesia contains globally significant seagrass resources and requires spatially explicit tools that translate ecological and climate information into management priorities. This study developed a quantitative framework for assessing seagrass climate vulnerability across 18 Indonesian study sites using ecological monitoring data, SST-based climate indicators for 1981–2018, and an independent emission-related pressure layer. Ecological condition and climate exposure were integrated into the Seagrass Climate Vulnerability Index (SCVI), and SCVI classes were combined with emission-pressure classes through the Seagrass Climate Risk Interaction Matrix (SCRIM). A symmetric sensitivity analysis across five ecological-versus-exposure weighting configurations showed high agreement among site rankings (Kendall’s W = 0.960), supporting the retention of equal weighting as a representative central estimate rather than an assumed reference. Results showed marked spatial heterogeneity: Ternate, Raja Ampat, and Karimunjawa were classified as relative high-risk sites, whereas Selayar, Makassar, and Sikka were identified as relative potential-refugia candidates under the low-SCVI–low-emission combination. The SCVI–SCRIM framework provides a transparent decision-support approach for preventive conservation, restoration targeting, enhanced monitoring, and pressure reduction in data-limited marine spatial planning contexts.