Here, we employed the social adaptive capacity index developed in McClanahan et al. (2008a). Based on both the household surveys described above and key informant interviews, we derived eight indicators of adaptive capacity. These were: (1) recognition of causal agents impacting marine resources (measured by content organizing responses to open-ended questions about what could impact the number of fish in the sea); (2) capacity to anticipate change and to develop strategies to respond (measured by content organizing responses to open ended questions relating to a hypothetical 50% decline in fish catch); (3) occupational mobility (indicated as whether the respondent changed jobs in the past five years and preferred their current occupation); (4) occupational multiplicity (the total number of person-jobs in the household); (5) social capital (measured as the total number of community groups the respondent belonged to); (6) material assets (a material style of life indicator measured by factor analyzing whether respondents had 15 material possessions such as vehicle, electricity and the type of walls, roof, and floor): (7) technology (measured as the diversity of fishing gears used); and (8) infrastructure (measured by factor analyzing 20 infrastructure items such as hard top road, medical clinic, Pollnac and Crawford, 2000). The indicator of occupational multiplicity is fundamentally different from our measure of sensitivity since it builds on the households’ complete portfolios of occupations, and is therefore able to capture a households general ability to adapt to change. The sensitivity measure, in contrast, only focuses on the extent to which households are engaged in fishery versus non-fishery-related occupations, and how they rank their relative importance. These eight indicators of adaptive capacity were combined into a single metric based on weightings derived from expert opinion from ten regional and international social scientists.