Overview
2024 OHI Assessment
The OHI 2024 global assessment includes scores from 2012 to 2024 for 220 coastal countries and territories.
This marks our 13th year of calculating the global Ocean Health Index. The average 2024 Index score was 69 out of 100. This year the average global OHI scores declined by several points because this year’s scores incorporate the massive decline in tourism and recreation due to COVID. Much of tourism has recovered, but these data are not yet available. You can now download 13 years of data which makes the OHI a very useful resource for exploring changes in the sustainable use of ocean resources over time.
The downloadable dataset includes global and country index scores as well as the goal scores and components used to calculate the scores (see score metadata for a description of the data).
Every year we improve the Ocean Health Index by incorporating new data, knowledge, and feedback. In order to make scores comparable among years, we recalculate previous year’s results using the most recent methods and data.
To learn more about the methods used to calculate the scores select the METHODOLOGY TAB for a general overview and the GLOBAL METHODS for a detailed description of the OHI global methods.
METHODOLOGY TAB
PREPARATION MATERIALS
In the interest of transparency and to promote scientific discovery that builds off our methods, we freely provide the data and scripts used to calculate the global Ocean Health Index. However, we do not provide unaltered data obtained from other sources, to obtain these data you must go the original data sources.
Extra materials we use to calculate scores are available from these locations:
- Preparing data: GitHub repository (ohiprep) with scripts used to prepare data. We also have a document describing how these files are organized.
- Calculating scores: GitHub repository (ohi-global) with scripts used to calculate scores.
- OHI Global Guide: A (very) detailed manual for conducting the global assessment.
- Large data files: Extra data too large to host on GitHub.
CITING THIS WORK
We enthusiastically support the use of our data, but please cite our work.
For general references to the Ocean Health Index, please cite:
- Halpern BS, Longo C, Hardy D, McLeod KL, Samhouri JF, Katona SK, et al. (2012) An index to assess the health and benefits of the global ocean. Nature. 2012;488: 615–620. doi:10.1038/nature11397
If you are conducting an OHI+ assessment, please consider citing the following:
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Halpern BS, Longo C, Hardy D, McLeod KL, Samhouri JF, Katona SK, et al. (2012) An index to assess the health and benefits of the global ocean. Nature. 2012;488: 615–620. doi:10.1038/nature11397
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Ocean Health Index. Year. ohicore version: core Ocean Health Index functions, [date downloaded]. National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California, Santa Barbara. Available at: https://github.com/OHI-Science/ohicore/releases
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Ocean Health Index. 2015. Ocean Health Index Toolbox Manual [date]. National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California, Santa Barbara. Available at: http://ohi-science.org/manual
If you are using the most recent global datasets or methods, please cite:
- Ocean Health Index. Year. ohi-global version: Global scenarios data for Ocean Health Index, [date downloaded]. National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California, Santa Barbara. Available at: https://github.com/OHI-Science/ohi-global/releases