Developing economic indices to assess the human dimensions of the South Florida coastal marine ecosystem services

We illustrated the use of these HD economic indicators with an empirical example for the Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas where the indicators are measured over a one year period. The changes were then scored and the scores were assigned a stop light rating of: green for good (or increasing), yellow for fair (or stable), and red for poor (or decreasing). Our empirical illustration of HD economic indicators offers a first step in developing metrics to rate the status of Florida's coastal and marine ecosystem services. The next steps are to propose a full suite of candidate HD economic indicators and metrics; final selection of HD economic indicators and their integration into the conceptual model; annual calculation of these indicators and their evaluation; and environmental/ecosystem assessment.