Mapping global human dependence on marine ecosystems

Selig, Elizabeth R.; Hole, David G.; Allison, Edward H.; Arkema, Katie K.; McKinnon, Madeleine C.; Chu, Jingjie; de Sherbinin, Alex; Fisher, Brendan; Gallagher, Louise; Holland, Margaret B.; Ingram, Jane Carter; Rao, Nalini S.; Russell, Roly B.; Srebotnjak, Tanja; Teh, Lydia C.L.; Troëng, Sebastian; Turner, Will R.; Zvoleff, Alexander

doi:10.1111/conl.12617

Mapping global human dependence on marine ecosystems

Selig, Elizabeth R.; Hole, David G.; Allison, Edward H.; Arkema, Katie K.; McKinnon, Madeleine C.; Chu, Jingjie; de Sherbinin, Alex; Fisher, Brendan; Gallagher, Louise; Holland, Margaret B.; Ingram, Jane Carter; Rao, Nalini S.; Russell, Roly B.; Srebotnjak, Tanja; Teh, Lydia C.L.; Troëng, Sebastian; Turner, Will R.; Zvoleff, Alexander

Authors

Elizabeth R. Selig

David G. Hole

Edward H. Allison

Katie K. Arkema

Madeleine C. McKinnon

Jingjie Chu

Alex de Sherbinin

Brendan Fisher

Louise Gallagher

Margaret B. Holland

Jane Carter Ingram

Nalini S. Rao

Roly B. Russell

Tanja Srebotnjak

Lydia C.L. Teh

Sebastian Troëng

Will R. Turner

Alexander Zvoleff

Abstract

Many human populations are dependent on marine ecosystems for a range of benefits, but we understand little about where and to what degree people rely on these ecosystem services. We created a new conceptual model to map the degree of human dependence on marine ecosystems based on the magnitude of the benefit, susceptibility of people to a loss of that benefit, and the availability of alternatives. We focused on mapping nutritional, economic, and coastal protection dependence, but our model is repeatable, scalable, applicable to other ecosystems, and designed to incorporate additional services and data. Here we show that dependence was highest for Pacific and Indian Ocean island nations and several West African countries. More than 775 million people live in areas with relatively high dependence scores. By identifying where and how people are dependent on marine ecosystems, our framework can be used to design more effective large‐scale management and policy interventions.

Citation

Selig, E. R., Hole, D. G., Allison, E. H., Arkema, K. K., McKinnon, M. C., Chu, J., …Zvoleff, A. (2019). Mapping global human dependence on marine ecosystems. Conservation Letters, 12(2), Article e12617. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12617

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Oct 30, 2018
Online Publication Date	Dec 19, 2018
Publication Date	Mar 31, 2019
Deposit Date	Jan 4, 2019
Publicly Available Date	Jan 4, 2019
Journal	Conservation Letters
Publisher	Society for Conservation Biology
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	12
Issue	2
Article Number	e12617
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12617

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Copyright Statement
Advance online version This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Authors.