1. Health Card
(How to Prepare?)
AEM-505
By:Pulak Priti Patra
Dept. of Aquatic Environment Management
Faculty of Fishery Sciences
West Bengal University of Animal and Fishery
Sciences

2. What is Ecological Health Card?
• This health card is a tool for managing nutrient
loads into coastal waters.
• It also states the condition of a aquatic body with
respect to its water quality, productivity, nutrient
availability, biodiversity and classify the water
body the with suitable grade to understand its
condition.

3. Framework for Developing Health
Card

5. DRIVERS
These are the fundamental forces that affect the
environment, whether societal drivers, such as
energy development and demographics, or natural
drivers, such as climatic and oceanographic
processes.

7. PRESSURE
These are the human activities and natural
processes that cause environmental stressors; human
activity examples include coastal development, oil
and gas exploration and spills, and commercial
and recreational fishing.

8. •
•
•
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Fishing and Aquaculture
Pollution
Tourism
Sedimentation

9. STRESSORS
• These are what the ecological system ―sees‖, defined
as chemical, physical, or biological agents that can
cause ecological effects.
• Examples include habitat alteration, changes in the
salinity regime, sea-level rise, harmful algal
blooms, toxic chemicals, and excess nutrients.

10. STATE
• This is the condition of the environment, which is measured in
terms of Valued Ecosystem Components (VECs), i.e., those
particular ecological attributes that are important to humans
and/or to the functioning of the ecosystem itself.
• Examples include fisheries populations, marine mammals,
important habitats such as wetlands, sea grasses, and coral
reefs, and critical or endangered species;

11. IMPACTS
This is a measure of how far the condition of the
ecosystem is, in terms of the VECs, from a desired
condition, such as the condition that existed before
an oil spill occurred, or the desired environmental
goal for ecological recovery and sustainability

12. • Impacts on Economy
• Impacts on Society
• Impacts on the Ecology

13. RESPONSE
This is what society does to reduce, mitigate, or
adapt to stressors; often response actions are aimed
at reducing the Pressures on the environment, such as
through pollution controls, regulations to improve the
safety of ships or oil platforms, or land-use and
water-conservation measures.

14. • This report card is a significant step in progressing our understanding of
how human activities (or Pressures) affect the environmental condition
within the Pressure-State-Response (PSR) framework for environmental
management..
• Ensuring hydrological connectivity with freshwater and coastal processes
at the basin level.
•
Establishing hierarchical and multiscalar inventory of hydrological,
ecological, socioeconomic, and institutional features and ecosystem services
to support management planning and decision-making.
• Promoting sustainable catchment management practices to manage
inflow of silt and nutrients into the wetland system.

15. • Adopting environmental flows as a basis for water allocation for
conservation and development activities.
• Promoting biodiversity conservation through habitat improvement of
endangered and indigenous species
•
Supporting ecotourism development for enhancing awareness, income
generation, and livelihood diversification .
• Promoting sustainable fisheries for maintaining nutritional security while
ensuring maintenance of biodiversity and equitable sharing of benefits.

16. • Building capacity at all levels for technical and managerial skills for
implementation of integrated management planning.
• Reducing poverty through sustainable resource development and
utilization and livelihood diversification.
• Promoting institutional arrangements enabling integration of wetland
management planning and river basin and coastal zone management.

17. Steps should be followed
to prepare a Health card

19. Step 1
Create new indicators and novel
Technique for effective and rigorous and
spatial analysis

20. Freshwater water body:• Deep-water bottom communities
• Pelagic habitats
Marine water water body:•
•
•
•
•
Coral reefs
Seagrass communities
Salt and freshwater
Marshes
Coastal forests

21. Step:-2
Select Indicators that convey
Ecological information

22. WATER QUALITY
• Water clarity — a measure of how much light penetrates though the water
column which plays an important role in determining Lake grasses and
phytoplankton distribution and abundance.
•
Dissolved oxygen — critical to the survival of aquatic life. The amount of
dissolved oxygen needed before aquatic organisms are stressed, or even
die, varies from species to species.
•
Total chlorophyll — a measure of phytoplankton (microalgae) biomass.
Elevated phytoplankton levels can reduce water clarity and decomposing
phytoplankton can reduce dissolved oxygen levels.

23. FISHERIES
•
Total catch —Allows Lake managers to monitor annual yield in
comparison to a calculated maximum sustainable yield.
•
Commercial species diversity — number of species landed each year that
are commercially important for the livelihood of fishermen.
• Size — body length of landed species should be above (or between) a
prescribed length to ensure sustainability of the species.

24. BIODIVERSITY
• Bird count and richness — count of the number of birds and bird species
utilizing the Lake.
• Presence of any other aquatic mamals — in many lake dolphin present.
• Benthic infauna diversity —Benthic infauna are organisms living in or on
the soft bottom areas of the Lake (e.g., clams and worms) and are a key
food source for many species.
• Phytoplankton diversity (microalgae) —Phytoplankton are an important
component of the Lake’s food web.

25. Step 3
DEFINE THRESHOLD

26. Desired conditions are based on available
guidelines, current scientific knowledge, and/or
historical data and trends, and take into account the
influence of a variable climate from year to year. The
table in next slide outlines the desired condition
developed or identified for each indicator and the
source of this information.

27. Category
Simpson's index of
diversity
Water Clarity
< 30 NTU
Dissolve Oxygen
> 5 mg/L or 60% sat
Total Chlorophyll
< 5 µg/ litre
Total Catch
Fisheries
Benthic In fauna
Diversity
Ratio to maximum
Bird Count ever
Recorded
Simpson's index of
diversity
Phytoplankton
Diversity
Water
Quality
Desired
Condition
Bird Count &
Richness
Biodiversity
Indicator
% deviation above or
below MSY
Commercial Fish
Species
Ratio of species
landed desired
Size
Proportion of species
landed above a
sustainable size limit
Source of Data
Data collected from
earlier record or
collection from old
local people

28. Step 4
Calculate Indicator Score and
Combine into Index Grades

29. Calculating Ecosystem Grade
The grades were calculated from the average
of water quality, fisheries, and biodiversity
indices, comprised of data collected.

30. A Grade
• 80–100%.
• All water quality and biological health indicators
meet desired levels.
• Quality of water in these locations tends to be very
good, most often leading to very good habitat
conditions for fish and shellfish.

31. B Grade
• 60–80%.
• Most water quality and biological health indicators
meet desired levels.
• Quality of water in these locations tends to be good,
often leading to good habitat conditions for fish and
shellfish.

32. C Grade
• 40–60%.
• There is a mix of good and poor levels of water
quality and biological health indicators.
• Quality of water in these locations tends to be fair,
leading to fair habitat conditions for fish and
shellfish.

33. D Grade
• 20–40%.
• Some or few water quality and biological health
indicators meet desired levels.
• Quality of water in these locations tends to be poor,
often leading to poor habitat conditions for fish and
shellfish

34. F Grade
• 0–20%.
• Very few or no water quality and biological health
indicators meet desired levels.
• Quality of water in these locations tends to be very
poor, most often leading to very poor habitat
conditions for fish and shellfish.

35. Step 5
Communicate Using Mass
media

36. The communication should be done properly
through mass media, digital media etc. to
circulate the health status of the aquatic body
and create awareness between peoples if the
particular aquatic body is in poor condition.

37. Conclusion
Health card gives us an overall idea about the status of any
aquatic body. Though to make prepare a health card of the lake,
river etc is very tough task due to various limitation, the initiation has
been taken by GOI.
The health card of Chilka lake has been already prepared. We
hope, in future the health card should be prepared for all important
lakes and wetlands and monitoring will be done accordingly.

38. Reference
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Chilka Lake Health Card
Great Barrier Reef Health Card
Chesapeake Bay Report Card
Gulf of Mexico Health Card

39. THANK YOU