Sea sick? An Ocean Health Index to inform comprehensive marine policy and management

Background/Question/Methods

The ocean plays a critical role in supporting human well-being, from providing food, livelihoods, and recreational opportunities to regulating global climate. Sustainable management of the ocean aimed at maintaining the flow of a broad range of services requires a comprehensive and quantitative method to measure the health of coupled human-ocean systems. We created an Ocean Health Index comprising ten diverse goals for a healthy ocean in an effort to standardize assessments and to facilitate comparisons across locations and through time. We illustrate how to apply our framework by calculating the Index for every coastal country on the planet.

 Results/Conclusions

This global application illustrates the ability of the Ocean Health Index to (1) represent a portfolio of social benefits, such that there are multiple ways to achieve a single ocean health score, and (2) combine information about the current and near-term future state of ocean health in order to operationalize the concept of sustainability. I will highlight key areas where strategic investment could be used to improve ocean health and how and why prioritizing different actions could improve ocean health scores. The Index provides a powerful tool to raise public awareness, direct resource management, improve policy and prioritize scientific research.