Introduction to the Technical Guidance

Purpose of the technical guidance

This guidance describes a statistical framework for measuring the ocean, its importance to people, and what people are doing to change it. It provides guidance on how to use the framework and what to do with the results. The framework is based on the principle that information is more powerful when it can be reliably combined with other information. Measuring one ecosystem in one location is useful, but if we have the same measures for many ecosystems, we can set priorities about which are the most important to protect or to rehabilitate so that we may retain or enhance their long-term values to society. To combine information from different sources, they must be either collected according to a shared measurement framework or converted to one to be consistent. This document provides a starting point for such a measurement framework.

This document is intended to be relevant to different audiences, including but not limited to policy experts, scientists, and statisticians. The intent is to provide a common measurement framework that demonstrates how scientific information can be integrated using environmental-economic and other complementary approaches to address national policy priorities.

Importance of the ocean

There is much agreement that the ocean is important and threatened. Unless we have coherent measures, we will never know how important and how threatened. From fisheries to marine-based tourism, our ocean is a vital source of livelihood, employment, nutrition, and economic growth, and it is essential in balancing our climate. Marine and coastal ecosystems are the first line of defense from ocean storms, coastal erosion, sea level rise, and saltwater inundation, and they are among the richest sources of biodiversity on our blue planet. Yet, rampant marine pollution, ocean acidification and warming, destructive fishing practices, unsustainable or unregulated extraction of marine resources, unsustainable trade and transport, development and unplanned urbanization, and inadequate coastal and marine governance threaten the health of our ocean and its capacity to nurture sustainable development of, for example, consumptive fisheries and non-consumptive marine-based tourism.

Global commitment to sustainable development of the ocean

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries—developed and developing—in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth—all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.

SDG 14 is established “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development”. How we manage the ocean is also implied in several other SDGs relating to poverty, food, equality, economic growth, disaster risk, sustainable consumption and production, climate change, and terrestrial ecosystems. This framework addresses many of these targets and related indicators. It does so by providing guidance on integrating ocean-relevant data, including data on the state of the ocean, our use of the ocean, our impact on the ocean, its impact on us, and what we’re doing for ocean protection.

The need for partnerships

This document represents the contribution of more than 120 statisticians, scientists, and governance experts from governments, international organizations, universities, the private sector, and research institutes. It addresses SDG 17, which calls for strengthening the means of implementation and revitalization of global partnerships for sustainable development, by encouraging partnerships (e.g., Global Ocean Accounts Partnership) to focus on the global issue of sustainable management of the ocean. No single organization has the mandate or the influence to improve how we change, benefit from, or protect the ocean. It requires collaboration across levels, countries, disciplines, and sectors.

Commitment to implementing the framework

This document is only the starting point for a comprehensive statistical framework that needs to be tested and expanded. Several collaborators are working with countries on pilot studies and have committed to integrating the framework into their research and their results and experiences into the framework. Feedback from piloting and research will strengthen the framework over time so that it can be proposed as part of an international statistical standard.

The role of partners

The Global Ocean Accounts Partnership represents a commitment to improving, harmonizing, and applying ocean-related data in accordance with international standards and in keeping with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Secretariat for the Partnership is hosted by the Global Water Institute at the University of New South Wales. The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) is a founding partner.

Several UN agencies have contributed to the document and are participating in pilot studies. ESCAP initiated the first Asia and the Pacific Regional Expert Workshop on Ocean Accounts in August of 2018. During 2019, it supported pilot studies in Asia and the Pacific (China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Samoa, Thailand, Vanuatu, and Viet Nam). ESCAP continues to lead on statistical development of the framework.

Role of GOAP Expert Panel

The Global Ocean Accounts Partnership Panel of Technical Experts (the Panel) comprises 21 experts in various aspects of ocean accounting from around the world actively working to improve our understanding of economic and scientific factors affecting the health of the ocean and to generate information that will make more effective action possible. The Panel has two primary missions:

  • Identify and assess new challenges in ocean accounting that will affect many countries, and
  • Provide advisory assistance to countries undertaking ocean accounts on technical economic or scientific issues.

The Panel will define the areas for which it will develop guidance, informed by requests and suggestions from national governments and other institutions involved in the compilation or use of ocean accounts. Working groups will be formed for each area and Panel members will prepare short papers and accompanying materials as appropriate. See the current members on the GOAP website.

Contribution to the SEEA Revision

The UN Statistical Commission (UNSC) had requested ESCAP and UN Environment to take the lead in developing guidance for ocean statistics. This document will also provide input and learn from the revision of the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA) Ecosystem Accounting for 2020.

Overview of the framework and document

The Ocean Accounts Framework adapts two international statistical standards: the System of National Accounts (SNA) and the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA). The SNA provides a set of recommendations on how to compile monetary measures of economic activity, including a set of coherent, consistent, and integrated macroeconomic accounts. It also provides an overview of economic processes, recording how production is distributed among consumers, businesses, government, and foreign nations. SNA accounts are one of the fundamental building blocks of macroeconomic statistics forming a basis for economic analysis and policy formulation.

The SEEA provides a framework that integrates physical environmental data with monetary data from the SNA, to provide a more comprehensive and multipurpose view of interrelationships between the economy and the environment, and the stocks and changes in stocks of environmental assets, as they bring benefits to humanity. The SEEA contains internationally agreed concepts, definitions, classifications, accounting rules, and tables for producing internationally comparable statistics and accounts, which are interoperable with the SNA. The SEEA can be applied not only to data on fish stocks but also to sources of land-based pollutants and the value of ecosystem services such as coastal protection and recreation. The Ocean Accounts Framework is based on the principles, components, and classifications of the SEEA and extends them, where necessary, to better apply to the ocean.

The current scope of the Ocean Accounts Framework is to support the compilation of spatially detailed national-level accounts covering maritime zones subject to sovereignty or national jurisdiction, namely: internal waters, the territorial sea and contiguous zone, archipelagic waters, the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and/or the continental shelf claims. This scope can also include particular areas within a maritime zone such as a particular bay, province, or protected area within a territorial sea. However, the framework is also applicable to the compilation of global accounts, recognizing some conceptual challenges in accounting for activities in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ).

Living document

The technical guidance is a living document, divided into six main themes:

  1. Using accounts and indicators in decision-making
  2. Compiling indicators for decision-making
  3. Compiling accounts from relevant data
  4. Locating and producing data
  5. Concepts and definitions (strucutre)
  6. Thematic case studie

Areas of future work

This Guidance is a work in progress, with ongoing efforts to develop the concepts and methodologies described within this document. For an extensive list of research questions, the reader is directed to the section 5. Research agenda for ocean accounting and Appendix 6.8. Testing of various aspects of ocean accounting, the development of concepts, methodologies, and account structure are described below. Many of the issues described are currently informing, or will benefit from, the SEEA Ecosystems revisions process.

Future ocean accounts pilot studies are encouraged to test the following:

  • A conceptual framework and classification of characteristic economic activities to support Ocean Economy Satellite Accounting.
  • Global data sources (e.g., global shorelines, bathymetry) for national applications.
  • The size and shape of spatial units for near-shore and offshore areas.
  • The IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology against national and international classifications.
  • 3-dimensional (volume) spatial frameworks, consistent with area-based (2-dimensional) accounting.
  • Scope boundaries of ocean accounts, considering jurisdictional and administrative boundaries.

Several concepts and classifications are also under development, where a synthesis of existing research is being conducted for:

  • Linking ecosystem processes with ecosystem services classification,
  • Linking ecosystem condition to ecosystem service provisioning,
  • The monetary valuation of ecosystem assets and flows,
  • Allocating the wealth of corporations, households, and governments to the ocean,
  • Disaggregation of different social group beneficiaries, with reference to marginalized groups

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