The National Ocean Economics Program
An assessment of the ocean's economy through a
national information system is essential to restore healthy and
productive oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes. The National Ocean
Economics Program (NOEP) provides a broad range of relevant and
accessible economic and socio-economic information on changes and
trends in the coastal and ocean environment. Our primary objective
is the creation and distribution to the public of a spatially and
temporally consistent data set that will support a wide range of
economic, scientific, and resource management activities. A
secondary objective is the development of selected derivative
products designed to demonstrate the utility of the primary data
set. NOEP outputs comprise both market and non-market indicators
of the value of ocean and coastal resources, and incorporate key
indicators of the human activities that depend upon and impact
ocean and coastal resources.
Our overall mission is to link the nature, scope,
and value of human activities to the environmental state of the
coast and coastal oceans; to present useful information on the
economics and the natural and social resources of the coast and
coastal oceans; and to provide useful data that demonstrates the
interdependence between the health of the U.S. economy and the
health of the coast and coastal ocean. The long-term goal is to
explore through market and non-market indicators, flows and stock
values of natural resources, aggregated by geographies; then
present through an information tool that can juxtapose, or even
integrate, information about changes in human activities with
information about changes in the biophysical environment.
The NOEP is the first effort to provide this type
of information. The US Commission on Ocean Policy (USCOP) noted
the success of the NOEP. In its final report, "An Ocean Blueprint
for the 21st Century," the USCOP commended the NOEP for laying the
foundation for a broader program of "sustained, consistent, and
comprehensive data collection and analyses on the ocean and coastal
economies." The foundation for this work is time-series information
system of comparable and consistent economic and social indictors
with clear definitions and descriptions for the coast and coastal
ocean. The data are easily accessible over the Internet.
www.OceanEconomics.org.
Overview of the Program
To accomplish our mission the program's researchers
extract appropriate data sets from multiple sources, define
boundaries for the data, compile and formulate them for public use,
and then assess them for reliability and relevance.
We provide the following information and products:
-
Ocean and Coastal market indicators using direct
values by sector and
industry for employment, earned wages and income, output
of services and goods, number of establishments per sector
-
Demographic indicators exploring population and housing
trends and patterns by geography
-
Natural resource production of coastal and ocean, and
associated value
- Government expenditures
-
An annotated bibliography of studies using non-market
values with associated definitions and explanations of
methodologies used
-
The values of non-market goods and services, as
estimated by scholars in selected studies
Value of the Program
The NOEP data can enable coastal states to manage
growth more effectively through coordination of marine and
watershed policies by access to natural resource assessments and
measurable indicators as performance standards as were provided
after Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. The NOEP data also will enable
decision makers to evaluate management policies affecting fragile
or hazard-prone coastal areas and ensure consistency with national,
regional, and states goals aimed at achieving economically and
environmentally sustainable development.
