Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
11
REGULATING AND REDUCING
POLLUTION
What is the Ocean Health Index?
Using a new comprehensive index designed to assess the ben-
efits to people of healthy oceans, a group of scientists led by
Ben Halpern have evaluated the ecological, social, economic,
and political conditions for every coastal country in the world.
The Ocean Health Index is the first broad, quantitative assess-
ment of the important relationships between people and
the ocean in terms of the benefits we derive from the ocean.
Instead of simply assuming any human presence is negative, it
evaluates how our impacts affect the things we care about. The
Ocean Health Index defines a healthy ocean as one that deliv-
ers a range of benefits to people both now and in the future.
A healthy ocean can maintain or increase its benefits to us
(food and services) in the long term, without jeopardizing the
marine life that provides these benefits. This index aggregates
ten different measures into a score of how well the oceans are
doing. It is not a measure of how pristine the ocean is, but mea-
sures how sustainably it is providing the things we care about.
The measures—which include water quality and factors such
as food provision, carbon storage, tourism value, fisheries,
aquaculture, coastal protection, and biodiversity—were cho-
sen to reflect both ecosystem sustainability and human needs.
The index was derived from existing data on such things
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