2019 Global Ocean Health Index Scores

by Melanie Frazier

December 03, 2019

We are excited to announce the global Ocean Health Index (OHI) scores for 2019! The overall global Index score was 71, similar to scores in previous years.

This marks our eighth year of conducting the global assessment, and the second year hosting the Global Fellows Program to include University of California, Santa Barbara students with training to calculate the global scores. In addition to calculating the 2019 scores, this year’s Fellows, Molly Williams and Gage Clawson, worked to improve data collection and documentation. Gage Clawson will continue to work with us through the year and will lead next year’s assessment. We are thrilled with how well the Fellows program is working and are eager to begin selecting next year’s Fellows.

The Ocean Health Index measures how well we are managing ten benefits, or goals, that people want and need from the ocean. We were able to update data for most of the OHI goals. We also continued our efforts to improve the underlying models of the Ocean Health Index based on the most current science. For example, this year we improved the mariculture goal so the reference point is based on the biological production potential of aquaculture given recently published work by Rebecca Gentry and colleagues: Mapping the global potential for marine aquaculture.

The regions with the highest scores tend to be remote islands with low human populations, although Germany, Greenland, United Arab Emirates, and Italy also have relatively high scores. Regions with low scores tend to be in Africa, Latin America and the Carribbean, and Asia.

Here are the 2019 Ocean Health Index scores for 220 regions:

We are now beginning the 2020 Ocean Health Index assessment. So stay tuned for future developments.

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