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Ocean Health Index

The Ocean Health Index (OHI) measures and tracks the benefits and services that the ocean provides for people now and into the future. Determining ocean health requires an approach that integrates social, economic, and environmental information.

The OHI does this by measuring progress towards widely held goals that represent key benefits and services provided by marine ecosystems. By analyzing these goals together we obtain a comprehensive picture of the state of the ecosystem.

The framework facilitates transparent and repeatable assessments of ocean health over time, and can be integrated into ongoing policy initiatives to support sustainable ocean management.

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Quantifying status of the Baltic Sea

The Baltic Health Index (BHI) is a regional study applying the OHI framework. The aim is to provide an integrative and transparent tool to be used by decision-makers to guide management of the Baltic Sea towards increased sustainability.

In a first iteration, the BHI was adapted from previous OHI assessments tailoring the OHI framework to represent the cultural, social, and ecological characteristics and priorities of Baltic using the best available information and knowledge.

A second iteraction will further develop models specific to the Baltic Sea, and implement more automized routines for data collection and processing. See project GitHub repositories bhi-prep and bhi for code and documents detailing data collection, exploration and synthesis.

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