PHOTO(S): © MARK MOFFETT/MINDEN PICTURES/National Geographic Stock
This goal aims to assess the protection that coastal habitats provide against flooding and erosion to coastal areas that people value, both inhabited (homes and other structures) and uninhabited (parks, special places, etc.).
The current score indicates that although, in many places, these habitats (mangroves, salt marshes, coastal sea ice, coral reefs, and seagrasses) remain healthy and intact, their condition has degraded in comparison to about thirty years ago.
Since 2012, we have seen a modest decline in coastal protection scores globally. Like the carbon storage goal and habitat subgoal the data quality for many of our habitats is poor. However, a negative trend can be elucidated in the coastal protection goal due to the declining status of coastal sea ice, which has data derived from satellite imagery.
For the 2023 OHI assessment, Norway saw a large decrease in coastal protection with a score decrease of ~8 percentage points, likely due to declining sea ice. However, in Russia, we see a 2 point improvement.