Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, United States of America.
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2020 Jan 30;15(1):e0227502. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227502. eCollection 2020.
Effective management of marine systems requires quantitative tools that can assess the state of the marine social-ecological system and are responsive to management actions and pressures. We applied the Ocean Health Index (OHI) framework to retrospectively assess ocean health in British Columbia annually from 2001 to 2016 for eight goals that represent the values of British Columbia's coastal communities. We found overall ocean health improved over the study period, from 75 (out of 100) in 2001 to 83 in 2016, with scores for inhabited regions ranging from 68 (North Coast, 2002) to 87 (West Vancouver Island, 2011). Highest-scoring goals were Tourism & Recreation (average 94 over the period) and Habitat Services (100); lowest-scoring goals were Sense of Place (61) and Food Provision (64). Significant increases in scores over the time period occurred for Food Provision (+1.7 per year), Sense of Place (+1.4 per year), and Coastal Livelihoods (+0.6 per year), while Habitat Services (-0.01 per year) and Biodiversity (-0.09 per year) showed modest but statistically significant declines. From the results of our time-series analysis, we used the OHI framework to evaluate impacts of a range of management actions. Despite challenges in data availability, we found evidence for the ability of management to reduce pressures on several goals, suggesting the potential of OHI as a tool for assessing the effectiveness of marine resource management to improve ocean health. Our OHI assessment provides an important comprehensive evaluation of ocean health in British Columbia, and our open and transparent process highlights opportunities for improving accessibility of social and ecological data to inform future assessment and management of ocean health.
有效的海洋系统管理需要能够评估海洋社会-生态系统状况的定量工具，并对管理行动和压力做出反应。我们应用海洋健康指数（OHI）框架，每年回顾性评估不列颠哥伦比亚省从 2001 年到 2016 年的海洋健康状况，涉及 8 个目标，这些目标代表了不列颠哥伦比亚省沿海社区的价值观。我们发现，在研究期间，海洋健康状况总体上有所改善，从 2001 年的 75 分（满分 100 分）提高到 2016 年的 83 分，居住地区的得分从 68 分（北岸，2002 年）到 87 分（西温哥华岛，2011 年）不等。得分最高的目标是旅游和娱乐（该期间平均得分为 94 分）和生境服务（满分 100 分）；得分最低的目标是地方感（61 分）和食物供应（64 分）。在研究期间，食物供应（每年增加 1.7 分）、地方感（每年增加 1.4 分）和沿海生计（每年增加 0.6 分）的得分显著增加，而生境服务（每年减少 0.01 分）和生物多样性（每年减少 0.09 分）则略有下降，但具有统计学意义。从我们的时间序列分析结果中，我们使用 OHI 框架评估了一系列管理行动的影响。尽管数据可用性存在挑战，但我们发现有证据表明，管理能够减轻对几个目标的压力，这表明 OHI 作为评估海洋资源管理有效性以改善海洋健康的工具具有潜力。我们的 OHI 评估提供了不列颠哥伦比亚省海洋健康状况的重要综合评估，我们开放透明的流程突出了提高社会和生态数据可及性的机会，以促进未来的海洋健康评估和管理。
