An ocean health index for the Port of Vancouver

This pilot project developed a framework, completed all measurements from the field, and ran a fully computed example of an Ecosystem Health Index (EHI) for Burrard Inlet, an ocean fiord on the British Columbia south coast that is home to the Port of Vancouver, the largest Port in Canada, and is part of the unceeded traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations

Ecosystem health is the capacity to maintain a balanced, integrated, adaptive ecological system having the full range of elements and processes expected in the natural habitat, even in the face of external stresses. In addition to index calculations, underlying data were analyzed to assist with ecological understanding of ecological health. In-depth analyses included descriptions of spatial and temporal variation among biotic and abiotic patterns and links between those patterns.