Estuaries provide life support to aquatic biota and livelihood support to fishermen and local inhabitants. However, the ecosystem function of estuaries is impaired due to anthropogenic stressors and hence, the assessment of ecosystem health using ecological indicators will deliver the status of stability, maturity, and integrity of an estuary. In this paper, we compiled comprehensive ecological data into an Ecopath model from 2018 to 2019 for a tropical Indian estuary, Mandovi (ME) located along the western coast of India. The functional groups (22) identified in the food web ranged from primary producers (trophic level (TL) = 1) to dolphins (TL 4.4). The indices: biomass/total system throughput (0.01), primary production/respiration (11.04), and primary production/ biomass (35.7) showed that the estuary is a developing ecosystem far from maturity. The ME food web is an immature, complex and organized trophic network with a medium rate of recycling (Finn’s Cycling Index = 9.75%), high total system throughput (17,132.33 tons km⁻² year⁻¹), low ascendency (19,610 tons km⁻² year⁻¹), high relative ascendency (47.8%), moderate connectance (0.36), and omnivory indices (0.26). The health indices: eco-exergy index (21,471.33 gm detritus equivalent m⁻²) and system robustness (0.153) showed that the ecosystem is immature but resilient to unexpected perturbations in the ecosystem. The ecological indicators were compared with other global estuaries, and the environmental indices were developed for the ME. Based on the ecological indices, the estuarine system is immature, moderately developed, and not well organized in terms of its ecological components. The study also indicates that an ecological approach would be more appropriate and essential in analyzing tropical transitional waters' health and sustainability.

河口为水生生物群提供生命支持，为渔民和当地居民提供生计支持。然而，河口的生态系统功能由于人为压力而受损，因此，使用生态指标评估生态系统健康将提供河口的稳定性、成熟度和完整性状态。在本文中，我们将 2018 年至 2019 年的综合生态数据编译到了位于印度西海岸的热带印度河口 Mandovi (ME) 的 Ecopath 模型中。食物网中确定的功能组 (22) 范围从初级生产者（营养级 (TL) = 1）到海豚（TL 4.4）。生物量/系统总吞吐量（0.01）、初级生产/呼吸（11.04）和初级生产/生物量（35.7）指数表明，河口是一个发展中的生态系统，远未成熟。^-2 年^-1），低优势（19,610 吨公里^-2 年^-1），高相对优势（47.8％），中等连接（0.36）和杂食指数（0.26）。健康指数：生态火用指数（21,471.33 gm 碎屑当量 m ^-2) 和系统稳健性 (0.153) 表明生态系统不成熟，但对生态系统中的意外扰动具有弹性。将生态指标与其他全球河口进行比较，并为ME开发环境指标。从生态指标看，河口系统不成熟，发育中等，生态成分组织不完善。该研究还表明，在分析热带过渡水域的健康和可持续性时，生态方法将更为合适和必要。