What are the barriers, challenges, and opportunities associated with the development and use of indicators?
• Simplified economic indicators and indices receive wide media coverage, and society responds rapidly to them. One challenge is to develop ecosystem indicators that succeed in achieving a similar effect. • Currently, most indicators address single pressures or are unrelated to cause–effect mechanisms. Challenges for EBM include the uncertainty of reference conditions, natural variability of ecosystems, and defining the spatial and temporal scales within which indicators will function. • EBM is more complex than fishery management and must deal not only with a wider array of indicators, but also with their effective communication to several decision-makers. • A major challenge is to manage social systems and ecosystems simultaneously. Links between coastal ecosystem health and public health should drive policies relating to conservation of resources and biodiversity. • Scientists therefore need to better understand how their information may be linked to societal well-being, as well as
