The chemical byproducts of industry, such as mercury, are harmful to humans when ingested. These toxins can contaminate fish that reside in polluted rivers and thereby make their way into human diets. Each state within the western Lake Erie basin publishes their own advisories for maximum fish consumption. Cleaner rivers produce healthier fish with fewer consumption advisories, so this indicator is used to measure how clean rivers and lakes are from a human health perspective.
How is it scored?
The fish consumption indicator is based on fish consumption advisories which are issued by state or province. The thresholds are based on the number of servings of fish you can eat per month. Servings per month were assigned a report card score and these were averaged for an overall region score.