Frequently Asked Questions

This Index is the first comprehensive global measurement of ocean health that includes people as part of the ocean ecosystem.

It scientifically compares and combines all dimensions of ocean health – biological, physical, economic and social, in order to generate an objective and accurate snapshot of the health of the ocean controlled by every coastal country.

Other indices track various economic, social and environmental sectors, but this is the first index to track ocean health.

Recognizing that people are now part of the ocean ecosystem, this Index evaluates how well the ocean provides 10 key benefits to people and how well we protect its ability to do so in the future.

It is the first ocean assessment tool that scientifically compares and combines key elements from all dimensions of the ocean’s health – biological, physical, economic and social--- so that leaders, managers and the public can promote an increasingly beneficial future for all ocean life, including us.

By integrating information from many different disciplines and sectors the Index represents a significant advance over conventional single-sector approaches to assessing ocean condition

The goal of the Index is to encourage decisions that create a healthier ocean and track progress toward that goal.

By communicating the state of the world’s ocean the Index aims to build awareness and catalyze decision makers to develop and implement more effective policies that promote ocean health.

Scores for the Index’s ten goals provide leaders with information needed to create a more sustainable human-ocean ecosystem.

Index results and information help identify and quantify the benefits and tradeoffs of each action, enabling us to enabling leaders and the public to evaluate actions more clearly, broadly and holistically.

The Index allows us to combine different types of data and values to compare how well each country, and the world as a whole, is achieving a portfolio of key goals that are difficult to compare otherwise.

Historically, information about livelihoods, water quality, biodiversity, food production and other subjects have been considered separately. The Index analyzes them together so people can see how they interact and how we are doing overall in a comparable fashion.

The Index allows countries to compare their progress to one another and to the global average in a way not possible with current ocean assessment tools.

Results can inform countries about how various actions could improve their future Index scores.

171 countries and territorial regions.

In 1969, Buckminster Fuller said “Now there is one outstandingly important fact regarding Spaceship Earth and that is that no instruction book came with it.” The Ocean Health Index and other available indices are all contributions to developing that manual. They are dashboard instruments to help us monitor planetary condition in a more responsible manner than has been possible in past.

The Index draws on data from a number of existing indices, including the Consumer Price Index, Global Competitive Index, Human Development Index, Mariculture Sustainability Index, Tourism and Travel Competitive Index, World Governance Indicators as well as information from treaties and international projects such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and IUCN Red List. 
Is the Ocean Health Index at odds with conservation because of its focus on human benefits?

The Ocean Health Index is both people-centric and nature-centric. Several goals are explicitly about preserving nature and all goals must be pursued sustainably to achieve a high score.

The Index’s focus on benefits to people and human well-being is strategic. When well-being improves, people can devote more attention and resources to social and environmental maintenance and improvement. When well-being decreases, people must do anything they can to survive; both social and natural environments will suffer.

Conservation in today’s world can only be effective if it acknowledges and encourages a healthy, integrated relationship between people and nature.

The Index is a scientific effort developed by the contributions of more than 65 experts on marine science, economics and sociology from many leading universities, laboratories and government agencies.

Leading organizers of the Index include the National Center for Ecological Analysis and the Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara; the University of British Columbia’s Sea Around Us project, Conservation International, the National Geographic Society and the New England Aquarium.

Results and information provided by the Index can help countries prioritize and make the case for actions that could improve Index scores.

Beau and Heather Wrigley generously provided the founding grant. Pacific Life Foundation is the founding presenting sponsor. Thomas W. Haas Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, the Oak Foundation, Akiko Shiraki Dynner Fund for Ocean Exploration and Conservation, Darden Restaurants Inc. Foundation, Conservation International, New England Aquarium, and National Geographic provided financial and/or in-kind support. The National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis supported the Ecosystem Health Working Group as part of the Science of Ecosystem-Based Management project funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Individual collaborators received additional support from NSF, NASA, NOAA, and Stanford’s Center for Ocean Solutions and the Sea Around Us Project, with support from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

A healthy ocean sustainably delivers a range of benefits to people now and in the future.

We and our activities are part of the ocean, and this coupled human-ocean system is healthier if it delivers the most benefits for us that it can without jeopardizing the future health or function of the web of life that the ocean contains.

The Index assesses the ocean based on 10 widely-held public goals for a healthy ocean. They are:

• Food Provision
• Artisanal Fishing Opportunities
• Natural Products
• Carbon Storage
• Coastal Protection
• Sense of Place
• Coastal Livelihoods & Economies
• Tourism & Recreation
• Clean Waters
• Biodiversity

Oceans are our most valuable asset. They contain 99% of the space occupied by life on our planet, hold 97% of the planet's water, produce more than half of the oxygen in the atmosphere, and regulate the earth\’s climate.

More than 40% percent of the world’s population lives within 100 km of the coast, and ocean-based businesses contribute more than 38 million jobs and global ocean economic activity is estimated by UNESCO as between $3-6 trillion annually.

Today more than one billion people depend on fish for their basic protein. By 2050, our human population will require nearly twice as much food as it does today as a result of population increase to 9 billion and (hoped-for) increase in prosperity and growth of the middle class. More food will be required from the oceans to help meet that growing demand.

The sheer number of people who use and depend on the ocean, coupled with unwise practices we adopt, produce problems such as overharvesting of resources, reduction in biodiversity, degradation of marine habitats and potential extinction of species, among others. We jeopardize the very ecosystems on which our well-being (and perhaps survival) depends.

Oceans nourish us, provide livelihoods and sustain life on earth, but we no longer can take ocean benefits for granted. . The Ocean Health Index provides a useful framework and instrument to help us manage our oceans more beneficially and sustainably.

The 2012 Ocean Health Index is not a snapshot of ocean health in the 2012 year, but instead reflects conditions five or so years ago. While some data, such as those monitored by satellite, are updated daily or monthly, other data collected by hand often requires several years to gather and assemble into a database refined enough for public use. The Index relies on the most recent data available at global scales (that is, for all countries). Data for different components of the index come from different years, most of which are not current for 2012. Several years from now, as 2012 data enter the datastream, the score will more closely resemble what ocean conditions are today----but it will still lag what ocean conditions are in that year.

A maximum score of 100 is theoretically possible, but likely very difficult to achieve given the tradeoffs among goals that exist. However, it is still useful to use 100 as a benchmark against which to compare scores. For most goals, most country scores are far enough from 100 that there is plenty of room for improvement before worrying about whether scores of 100 can be obtained.

The status of each goal is evaluated with regard to a goal-specific reference point.

Reference points must be chosen very carefully in order to provide useful and reliable information. There are 4 different ways to determine a reference point, depending on what you're trying to measure; 1) a production equation (functional relationship) that describes output in relation to all inputs, e.g. fisheries catch related to fishing intensity; 2) temporal comparisons (e.g., value at a specified date in the past or rolling 3- or 5- year average), 3) spatial comparison, e.g. comparison with another country(ies) or region(s); , and 4) established benchmarks, e.g. zero pollution or ‘all species at ‘least concern’ status for risk of extinction. Functional relationships are the gold standard, but data availability and limits to scientific understanding often require spatial or temporal comparisons. When functional relationships are not available for use, SMART reference points should be selected that are Specific (to the management goal), Measurable, Ambitious, Realistic, and Time-bound.

Experts in marine science, economics and social science selected the goals after a thorough review of the existing literature containing information on what people expect from the ocean. They also reviewed the literature describing the pressures currently affecting ocean species, habitats and ecosystems and recommendations reported by major international conferences or included in international treaties or national policy frameworks regarding how to mitigate those pressures. They were able to group the various human expectations into 10 categories and frame them as goals the goals are closely related to or in support of those used in international efforts such as the UN Millennium Development Goals, Convention on Biological Diversity and others.

More than 100 data layers from different disciplines are used in the Index. Each dataset was converted to a unitless scale from 0 to 1. That transformation allows data of different kinds to be combined and compared. Each goal is calculated using its own goal-specific reference point and mathematical model, but all results are expressed on a scale of 0 to 1, and then converted to 0 to 100 for ease of communication. Since all goals are scored in the same manner, scores can easily be combined to provide average overall scores for each country. Overall scores for each country can be combined to provide the global Ocean Health Index score. Country scores are weighted by the areas of their EEZs when calculating the global Index score.

Different groups and countries probably value (weight) the importance of the 10 goals differently, but global information on such differences is not available. In the absence of that information the goals were weighted equally. We also explored several other hypothetical value sets, and they suggested that weights don't matter too much for the global score, but do make a difference in certain countries. Countries will be able to use the Ocean Health Index methods for detailed focal studies of the health of their waters. Such studies could use more recent or better quality local data than are available globally, and could incorporate country-specific goal weightings. The results of such studies would be useful for the country, but could not be used for comparison with scores of other countries.

Yes and no. Delivery of some goals does put pressure on other goals. For example, increased fishing can produce more food, but may negatively impact biodiversity. If all fishing is done sustainably and governance measures are in place that can mitigate potential negative impacts, then these tradeoffs can be minimized, but not necessarily eliminated an ideal balance is possible but difficult to quantify and achieve so tradeoffs are likely.

Index scientists will investigate potential tradeoffs and how to quantify them during coming years.

Top threats to the health of the oceans are climate change, ocean acidification, overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution and spread of invasive alien species.

Each threat differs in its immediate intensity, breadth of effects, geographic distribution other ways.

Some threats can be mitigated or prevented more easily than others. Slowing or stopping global climate change and ocean acidification is the most difficult challenge and would require decades for improvement. In contrast, overfishing can be remedied at the country level within a decade.

The Ocean Health Index subdivides these threats and weighs their impacts differentially for different goals.

Each goal for each country has its own 'top threat' based on the intensity and weight of each threat for each goal.

In uninhabited places, most human-related drop out, food production, livelihoods or tourism and recreation, for example, because people don't live there and so the goal(s) is not relevant, not scored, and not counted against the overall score. In other cases, if a country has never been able to produce a goal, such as never having done mariculture or not having mangrove habitat, that goal or sub-goal s not scored and the country is not penalized.

Per unit area, coastal habitats (such as mangroves, salt marshes) have the highest sequestration and storage rates of any habitat on earth, including terrestrial systems.

Coastal habitats store approximately 50% of all the carbon stored by the ocean.

Unlike open ocean areas, the carbon storage benefits of coastal habitats are immediately threatened, have large amounts of stored carbon that would rapidly be released with further habitat destruction, and are amenable to management, conservation, and restoration efforts.

Change over time in carbon storage by the ocean is likely to take place slowly, making it an unsuitable indicator for the Index.

These goals measure different aspects of how people relate to fishing. The catch of fish made by artisanal (=small-scale) fisheries is captured in the food provision goal. Jobs, wages and income from food provision and artisanal fishing goals are captured in the Livelihoods & Economies goal. The purpose of the Artisanal Fishing Opportunity goal is to evaluate the ability for people to pursue this fishing in relation to their need to do so. . The need for artisanal fishing opportunities is evaluated by the country’s per capita GDP, adjusted for local price purchasing power, under the assumption that people living in poorer nations have more need for such opportunity.

We looked at the average species extinction risk based on the IUCN Red List, the authoritative assessment of global extinction risk. Because assessments are performed on relatively few species, we may not have had data on some species that are threatened. In addition, it can take time before declines in species can be detected and reported by scientists. Although the current state of species looks relatively optimistic, nearly every country in the world has negative trends so the likely future state of species looks much more pessimistic. For habitats, we looked at the extent of habitats related to their extent in 1980. Because this reference point is relatively recent, many habitats were likely already significantly degraded by 1980. However, we felt that this was a target that was both ambitious and achievable. Like species, the trends for many habitats are negative.

We rescaled biodiversity scores linearly, assuming that each additional species at risk or amount of habitat lost corresponds to an equivalent change in the Status score. In reality, people may consider initial losses of species or habitats much worse than when systems are already degraded or heavily at risk. With such a value system, our assessment may seem too optimistic.

The available data for global tourism comes from international arrival data. As there is not a production function to establish which tourism is sustainable, we presumed all arrivals were sustainable.

Our reference point was the country that is doing the best, the British Caribbean Territories. It turns out that most countries are performing far lower than the best scoring country. For example; countries with large coastlines are scored as underdeveloped for coastal tourism as the number of international visitors per km of coast is very low compared to the best scoring country.

At the global scale we only had data for international arrivals. For regional assessments, data on domestic tourism would be important to include where available.

Three different aspects of climate change - increases in sea surface temperature (SST), ultraviolet radiation (UV), and ocean acidification -- are included as pressures to many goals in the Index, including Natural Products, Carbon Storage, Coastal Protection, Sense of Place, Livelihoods & Economies and Biodiversity.

Mitigation of climate change through carbon storage is one of the ten goals.

It's important to note that we are not forecasting future condition, so we do not have climate models in the Index (just as we don't have population models, fish stock models, etc.).

No globally consistent data exist with resolution of sea level rise sufficiently precise to show how much sea level rise has already happened to date along the coastlines of the different countries. Sea level rise will have important direct and indirect consequences for many goals. Improved data would allow incorporation of Sea Level Rise in future editions of the Index.

The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) is a project of the World Bank and the Brookings Institution to assess the quality of governance in more 213 countries worldwide. ‘Governance’ is the word used to describe what a government does and ‘governance effectiveness’ describes how well the government exercises its powers to create and enforce policies that benefit its citizens. Effective governance is essential to both successful development and maintaining environmental quality. ”To achieve their environmental commitments and goals, States need strong legislative, political and judicial systems” (UNEP 2010). The Worldwide Governance Indicators comprise six dimensions of governance: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, Control of Corruption. The Ocean Health Index uses this information to indicate social pressures on various goals; and also to indicate social Resilience.

This varies greatly by data layer. Nearly all go back at least five years, many go back a decade or two, several go back many decades, and just a few stretch back even further.

We will recalculate the global score every year. Not all datasets will be new every year, but we will make use of whatever new data become available. We suspect that noticeable differences in scores may require periods of 3 or 5 years to become visible.

The Index can be calculated at any scale, but the smallest appropriate scale is determined by the quality of the data and the objectives of the study. Some changes to the individual goal models may be required at small scales owing to the types, detail and quality of data that are available.

We anticipate conducting the assessment of High Seas areas in the coming year or two. Many of the goals drop out for High Seas areas. For example, Tourism & Recreation might be small to non-existent in many such areas. It is more difficult to assess High Seas areas than coastal areas because of the lack of data. For example there is much less information on governance. Also, few areas are monitored. However, we are working on adapting the Index for use in the High Seas.

We have already conducted sensitivity analyses that demonstrate how relatively simple management changes can translate into meaningful, significant, and easily detectable changes in goal scores and even the overall Index score.

For a particular country, any change is meaningful as the comparison is to itself.

For comparisons among countries, based simply on the distribution (variance) in the country-level results, changes in overall Index scores >10 points are significant and meaningful. Differences greater than 5 points are probably meaningful but not statistically significant.

Finding ways to make our relationship to the ocean more sustainable will give us a more reliable source of food, natural products, and coastal employment and revenue, for example. Doing so will also prevent decline or collapse of benefits in the future. All of this will become increasingly necessary as we approach 2050 when the world’s population reaches 9 billion.

In lots of ways. It can serve as a measurement tool for assessing effectiveness of plans and progress towards goals, it can help identify potential tradeoffs among uses, it can guide monitoring and resource allocation decisions, and many more.