Who stands to lose most if ocean health declines?

A new report from the US suggests ocean decline will present economic risks for multiple industries, including energy, tourism and shipping

Threats to global ocean health are “urgent and accelerating” with conditions “already beyond a safe baseline” and seriously jeopardising not only marine-based sectors but also having much wider financial implications.

Such is the view of IMarEST Ambassador to the United Nations Ocean Decade, Niru Dorrian, which is reinforced by predictions of global credit rating agency Moody’s that declining ocean health is on track to cost US$428 billion a year by 2050, with various sectors affected.

Dorrian observes that such realisation was behind the United Nations General Assembly proclaiming the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030).

“The Ocean Decade was established in recognition that ocean degradation, driven by biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution and overexploitation, was accelerating faster than society’s ability to understand and manage it effectively,” says Dorrian.

“Long-term monitoring and global assessments show sustained declines in biodiversity, ecosystem function and resilience, with impacts already reshaping marine ecosystems and the services they provide. These pressures are layered on top of centuries of degradation, including historic overexploitation through activities such as commercial whaling, which drove severe declines in many marine mammal populations and reduced ecosystem resilience.”

Dorrian claims the sectors that depend directly on healthy marine and coastal systems will be the most affected.

“These include fisheries and aquaculture, coastal tourism, offshore energy, shipping and ports, and a growing range of ocean observing, environmental monitoring, offshore renewable energy and coastal protection activities.

“In most cases, the challenge is not that industries will cease to exist, but that they must operate in increasingly constrained, complex and costly conditions. Sea-level rise, coastal erosion and more frequent extreme weather events are placing growing pressure on coastal and port infrastructure, disrupting operations and increasing maintenance and adaptation costs.

“For some coastal and small-scale fishing communities, declining ecosystem health combined with physical climate impacts is already threatening economic viability and livelihoods, highlighting uneven impacts across regions and sectors.”

Broader economic consequences

However, he also sees declining ocean health as carrying “broader economic consequences” relating to food security, global supply chains, ports and transport networks, coastal protection, disaster risk, insurance exposure and public infrastructure.

“Sea-level rise, coastal erosion and increasingly frequent flooding and storm events are driving the need for significant investment in coastal defences, resilient infrastructure, emergency response and long-term adaptation, particularly in low-lying and highly exposed regions,” he explains.

“In some areas, these combined pressures are also contributing to population displacement, particularly from low-lying coastal zones and island communities, with knock-on effects for labour markets, housing, public services and social stability.

“[This] underlines that ocean health is a systemic issue with economy-wide and societal implications.”

He embraces the UN’s High Sea Treaty as a “necessary and potentially transformative” development for ocean health but warns it is “not sufficient on its own”.

“It establishes, for the first time, a legal framework to protect biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction through tools such as marine protected areas, environmental impact assessments and capacity building. However, its success will depend on implementation, enforcement, monitoring capability and sustained political and financial commitment.”

Additionally emphasising that “ocean technology has never been more capable”, Dorrian implores the need for “urgent, coordinated action” to avoid “further irreversible” ocean damage.

“Across many domains we can now detect, classify, track and report ocean processes and pressures at levels of speed, coverage and resolution that would have been difficult to imagine even a decade ago. Tools once considered experimental are now operational and many have been tested and validated in real-world conditions.

“Yet across safety, logistics, climate and biodiversity, the same pattern persists – technologies prove themselves, pilot projects succeed and evidence is strong, but adoption fails to become routine or embedded at scale. The challenge is no longer a lack of technical solutions, but data integration, standardisation, sustained funding, regulatory adaptation, and the institutional confidence needed to mainstream proven approaches.

“Closing this gap between capability and implementation is essential if ocean science and innovation are to deliver lasting improvements in ocean health. This is a moment where delay materially increases risk.”

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Image: large waves crash over a seawall causing coastal flooding in Wells, Maine, USA. Credit: Shutterstock.