NCEAS Working Groups
A framework to assess ecosystem health in support of ecosystem-based management of coastal-marine systems (EBM)
Project Description
Maintaining healthy, productive marine ecosystems is a recurrent theme in policy recommendations, management deliberations, and public sentiment. While healthy oceans are a broadly shared goal, distinct vital signs to gauge the state of oceans have not been widely implemented, yet are essential for effective policy-making. This working group will reduce hundreds of candidate indicators to a manageable set that will serve as critical monitoring and planning tools for effective marine ecosystem-based management. Specifically, we will bring together leading scholars and practitioners from ecology, fisheries, oceanography, economics, and applied social sciences to develop ecosystem health metrics for the Arctic, continental shelves, coral reefs, estuaries, and coastal upwelling regions. We will address three overarching questions: (1) What does ecosystem health mean and how can we measure it? (2) How can we measure the degree to which human well-being is sustained by marine systems? (3) How transferable are such metrics across different systems? The indicators developed through this initiative will serve as concrete concepts to help catalyze political will, pave the way for policy-making at all levels of government, provide critical tools to communicate the state of marine systems to the public, and facilitate much-needed integration across the social and natural sciences.

Principal Investigator(s)
Karen L. McLeod, Larry B. Crowder, Michael J. Fogarty, Andrew A. Rosenberg
Project Dates
Start: January 20, 2010
End: January 13, 2012
completed
Participants
- Daniel R. Brumbaugh
- American Museum of Natural History
- F. Stuart Chapin
- University of Alaska, Fairbanks
- Larry B. Crowder
- Duke University
- Kendra L. Daly
- University of South Florida
- Braxton C. Davis
- South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control
- Scott Doney
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
- Michael J. Fogarty
- NOAA, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)
- Steven D. Gaines
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Benjamin S. Halpern
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Leah B. Karrer
- Conservation International
- Steven K. Katona
- Conservation International
- Heather M. Leslie
- Brown University
- Sarah E. Lester
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Catherine S. Longo
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Karen L. McLeod
- Oregon State University
- Elizabeth Neeley
- University of Washington
- Jennifer K. O'Leary
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Stephen Polasky
- University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
- Marla Ranelletti
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Andrew A. Rosenberg
- Conservation International
- Jameal Samhouri
- NOAA, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)
- Paul Sandifer
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
- Courtney E. Scarborough
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Elizabeth R. Selig
- Conservation International
- Janna Shackeroff
- Unknown
- William W. Stelle
- K and L Gates, LLP
- Kevin St. Martin
- State University of New Jersey
- Heather Tallis
- Stanford University
Products
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Presentations / 2011
Fleshing out the Ocean Health Index: The conceptual framework for a single measure of ecosystem health
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Presentations / 2011
Exploring indicators of fishing pressures in the context of the OHI with a focus on correcting the Marine Trophic Index for geographic expansion.
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Presentations / 2011
Good, bad, better, worse: Establishing appropriate reference points for ocean health
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Journal Article / 2012
Sea sick? Setting targets to assess ocean health and ecosystem services
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Journal Article / 2013
Assessing global marine biodiversity status within a coupled socio-ecological perspective