NOAA Report on the U.S. Ocean and Great Lakes Economy

The oceans and Great Lakes support the lives, lifestyles, and livelihoods of all Americans. We fish from their waters, vacation on their edges, ship cargo on their surface, and extract oil, gas, sand, and gravel from their seafloors.

Ocean and Great Lakes-dependent activities are important contributors to the nation’s economy. Oil and gas production provides energy. Seafood production and processing meet the demands of restaurants and seafood markets. Tourism and recreation support millions of part-time and entry-level jobs. Marine construction, marine transportation, and ship building provide access to global markets.

The oceans and Great Lakes also provide a wide range of benefits that, although real and fitting for economic consideration, do not lend themselves to traditional measures of jobs, wages, and gross domestic product. Coastal and ocean ecosystems sequester carbon from the atmosphere, protect communities from the harmful effects of coastal storms, and provide myriad other benefits that support human life and well-being.

This report provides insights into the benefits derived from the oceans and Great Lakes that result in jobs and wages and that contribute directly to the nation’s gross domestic product. This focus should not be understood to mean that the benefits whose footprints show up well in market data are the largest or most important ones. Instead, data presented in this report should be taken for what they are—indicators of the impacts that oceans and Great Lakes resources and ecological systems have on the market economy of the United States, viewed through the lens of nationally consistent data produced by federal agencies.

Data presented in this report are from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Economics: National Ocean Watch (ENOW) data set. ENOW data are produced by NOAA in partnership with the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Bureau of the Census, and are derived from some of these agencies’ most respected and commonly used data.

The consistency of ENOW’s representation of the ocean economy with these data sets is one of its primary advantages. Another is the fact that it is produced in a manner that yields results that are comparable across time and from place to place. ENOW data are available for the years 2005 through 2014 for about 400 coastal counties, 30 coastal states, 8 regions, and the nation.

The ocean economy, as represented in the ENOW data, includes six economic sectors that depend in various ways on the oceans and Great Lakes:

• living resources
• marine construction
• marine transportation
• offshore mineral extraction
• ship and boat building
• tourism and recreation

A review of this list underscores the complexity and importance of effective use, management, and governance of the oceans and Great Lakes. Some economic activities, like commercial fishing (part of the living resources sector), depend on the health of coastal and ocean ecosystems. Yet all of the sectors include activities that have the potential to harm these ecosystems, putting jobs, wages, and gross domestic product (as well has human life and wellbeing) at risk.

Maintaining the strength and sustainability of these ocean-based activities requires that we exercise good stewardship and care for the systems that support them.