World Ocean Assessment, Part 3

In past blog entries we have been discussing the 2016 publication of UN World Ocean Assessment, a massive report on the state of the ocean as we know it in the myriad ways that it affects our lives. We can measure these things using many methods: by GPS locations and underwater mapping, by observations through ever-improving surface and underwater technologies, by the aggregation of data into studies and academic papers, and by understanding the extent of impacts resulting from human intervention and exploitation. These approaches are comprehensive, and yet we still remain astonishingly ignorant of the actuality and extent of the ocean, physically and systemically. A main purpose of the World Ocean Assessment is to accumulate what we do know in one place for all to share as a baseline and scale against which to measure the future.

Almost everything we do on earth is also measured economically. And such valuation of the ocean and its related activities are far beyond similar calculations and financial reactions on land where many aspects of the economics are left out of the process, typically under-estimating the true profit or true loss in any particular set of circumstances. A new approach, called "ecosystem services" is an attempt to include as many of these absent values into a full audit and balance sheet for human interaction with Nature. When applied to ocean activities, it is particularly revealing because so many elements have historically been left out of the equation. The results of this fresh approach, therefore, can be particularly disconcerting by surprise and contradiction of past conclusions.

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