About FHI Introduction

The Freshwater Health Index (FHI) is a decision support tool developed by Conservation International in collaboration with scientists, water resource and landscape managers, policy makers and the private sector, to help societies manage and conserve freshwater systems. We define freshwater health as the ability to deliver water-related ecosystem services, sustainably and equitably, at the drainage basin scale, thus linking the ecological function and condition of upstream areas of service generation with downstream communities. It is implicit that sustainable and equitable long-term delivery of ecosystem services relies on long-term ecosystem function. The FHI system is unique in highlighting the relationships between healthy freshwater ecosystems, the flows of services they provide, and the role of governance and stakeholders in freshwater management and use. Undertaking an FHI assessment is a collaborative exercise between scientists, end users and stakeholders. This ensures that the results produced are salient, credible and useful. The FHI can also be used to evaluate scenarios such as climate variability, land cover change, population growth and water allocation decisions. Scenarios can be used to explore trade-offs and help stakeholders develop the policies and management practices needed to maintain freshwater systems and service flows into the future. The FHI is also intended to track freshwater health over time.

The FHI has three major composite indicators: Ecosystem Vitality, Ecosystem Services, and Governance & Stakeholders. Each component is assessed with a suite of sub-indicators. Indicators can be calculated using field collected or remotely sensed data, hydrologic and water allocation models, ecosystem service models, valuation techniques and stakeholder surveys. The intended scale of application is the drainage basin where resource management decisions have greatest relevance and decision support is likely to be the most useful. However, the framework and indicators are flexible and can be applied to smaller or larger spatial scales depending on stakeholder goals. The indicators can also be modified to fit varying socio-political, economic and ecological contexts as well as data availability.

This document provides guidelines to the application of the FHI. It explains the conceptual underpinnings of the FHI and provides definitions for each of the indicators. It also provides guidance on how to evaluate each indicator, suggestions on data sources helpful to evaluate indicators (for baseline assessments and scenario planning), aggregation of indicators and interpretation of index values. These guidelines will be reviewed and updated periodically. And we welcome input from all FHI users, particularly new examples that are illustrative of these guidelines.