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Tampa's Well-being: A Demonstration of ORD's Human Well-being Index (web content for the Tampa Bay Ecosystem services website)
Citation:
Smith, L. AND L. Harwell. Tampa's Well-being: A Demonstration of ORD's Human Well-being Index (web content for the Tampa Bay Ecosystem services website). U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development, Washington, DC, 2013.
Impact/Purpose:
To communicate results of HWBI application to the Tampa Bay Ecosystem Services Project Area.
Description:
Ecosystems provide services to humans that support our well-being. Well-being is not only our health but also our quality of life. We rely upon the services provided by nature to help maintain good health and a high quality of life, including clean water, clean air, food and recreational opportunities. By protecting the environment, we are helping to sustain people's well-being. The Office of Research and Development (ORD) created a Human Well-being Index (HWBI) as a measure to help understand the relationships between people and ecosystem as well as economic and social services. Individual and community well-being can be influenced by decisions made about environmental, economic, and social services. If decisions do not support stakeholder priorities, overall well-being in the community may greatly decline. The HWBI score for an area may change based on the relative importance of different components of well-being to stakeholders. The components of well-being, referred to as domains, include Connection to Nature, Cultural Fulfillment, Education, Health, Leisure time, Living Standards, Safety and Security, and Social Cohesion. The HWBI is a combination of the scores for each of the 8 domains. Different places may have different HWBI scores. Furthermore, those HWBI scores can change over time.