When data becomes action: how the Maldives is turning climate coordination into real-world impact
From global coordination to local decisions
The iClimateAction project was designed to address a structural problem in the global climate ecosystem: fragmentation.
Three major actors sit at the heart of this system:
- The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which coordinates climate observations and services
- The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), which defines the Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) needed to understand the climate
- The Group on Earth Observations (GEO), which connects data, users and applications across a global community of practitioners.
Individually, each plays a critical role. Together, they form the backbone of the global climate data value chain.
But historically, this chain has not always functioned as one.
Data has been produced without being fully aligned. Standards have existed without consistent application. Information has been available without being translated into decisions.
iClimateAction seeks to change that, by strengthening coordination, harmonisation, and interoperability of data across these institutions, and by testing what this coordination can deliver in practice. WP3 is where this ambition moves from the global level to local implementation.
The Maldives as a living laboratory
The Maldives is a country where climate change is already reshaping the future.
Its ecosystems - coral reefs, mangroves, coastal vegetation are the foundation of the country’s economy, its food systems, and its protection against rising seas. Understanding how these ecosystems are changing, and how they can support adaptation, is therefore a national priority. Since 2024, the Maldives has been working with GEO’s Global Ecosystems Atlas initiative, with support from the United Kingdom’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), to develop the country’s first national ecosystem map through the In-Country National Mapping Accelerator programme.
The Global Ecosystems Atlas National Accelerators are country-led projects designed to build local capacity to produce wall-to-wall ecosystem maps aligned with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Global Ecosystem Typology (GET) and directly ingestible into the Global Ecosystems Atlas. They combine hands-on field data collection, geospatial annotation, and AI-assisted mapping, pairing national experts with a small international technical team. By enabling countries to independently generate and validate high-quality ecosystem data, the programme helps close critical data gaps while creating long-term in-country capability.
In the Maldives, the National Accelerator is implemented as a collaboration between GEO and the Ministry of Tourism and Environment, building on earlier ecosystem mapping work undertaken by the IUCN in 2019.
This is why the Maldives was selected as the pilot site for WP3’s ecosystem demonstrator: it offers an existing, nationally led ecosystem mapping effort that can now be extended to test how climate information can better support ecosystem-based decision-making. Through a formal agreement between GEO and the United Nations University – Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), the demonstrator brings together scientific expertise, global data systems, and national stakeholders to address a practical question: how climate variables can be linked with ecosystem information in a way that directly supports adaptation planning and resilience.
Building a common language for climate variables and ecosystems
At the centre of the demonstrator is a methodological shift.
Climate data is typically organised around ECVs - such as temperature, precipitation, or sea level - defined and standardised by GCOS.
Ecosystems, however, are understood in terms of Ecosystem Functional Groups (EFGs), such as subtidal rocky reefs, intertidal forests and shrublands, or tropical lowland rainforests, as defined by the IUCN.
Until recently, these two frameworks have largely operated in parallel. The WP3 Maldives demonstrator is working to bring them together.
By linking ECVs with EFGs, UNU-EHS is developing a framework to understand and assess ecosystem’s vulnerability to climate change that allows decision-makers to understand where nature-based solutions can strengthen resilience.
Beyond the technical complexity of carrying out such an exercise, the demonstrator represents a real shift from observing the climate to understanding its impacts and acting on them.
Coordination in practice, in the Maldives
The transition from global coordination to real-world application became tangible during the vast amount of in-country work conducted over 2024 and 2025, as part of the Global Ecosystems Atlas National Accelerator. One of these engagements, the field mission conducted in September 2025, marked a critical step in the work of mapping the Maldives EFGs: moving from modelled data to validated, country specific information. This process - known as ground-truthing - is essential. Over a period of four weeks, joint teams composed of Maldivian experts and international researchers visited dozens of islands and coastal sites. Using a standardised methodology aligned with the IUCN GET, they conducted systematic ecosystem surveys.
At each location, the teams identified dominant ecosystem types across defined spatial scales, recorded vegetation structure, soil and water conditions, assessed ecosystem transitions and signs of disturbance, and compared observed conditions with satellite-based classifications
This process allowed for a direct validation of the data and highlighted areas where classifications required adjustment.
As one researcher involved in the Global Ecosystems Atlas Accelerator in the Maldives noted, the objective was to “bridge data and reality” by combining global observation systems with local knowledge to produce maps that decision-makers can trust.
The mapping outputs are now in their final iteration phase, with technical review and validation continuing between James Cook University (JCU), Allen Institute for AI (Ai2), and the Maldives Ministry of Tourism and Environment.
What it means from the global climate observing system
The field mission did not generate new data in isolation. It is currently being used to strengthen and iterate on earlier versions of the Maldive’s national ecosystem map. Another one of its values lies in how it strengthens the entire climate data value chain.
Through WP3, the validated map output will be directly linked to ECVs, ensuring consistency with global observation standards defined by GCOS.
WMO frameworks support the integration of this information into climate services, enabling its use in risk assessment and adaptation planning.
GEO provides the platform for coordination, ensuring that data, methodologies and tools are accessible and aligned across stakeholders.
The result is a shift from:
- Data production to data integration
- Global observation to national application
- Scientific outputs to decision-support tools
What changes when systems align
The Maldives demonstrator will illustrate potential new avenues that could be opened through collaboration between GCOS, GEO and WMO.
- First, data becomes interoperable. Climate variables defined at the global level can be directly linked to ecosystem indicators at the national level.
- Second, information becomes usable. Instead of isolated datasets, decision-makers gain integrated insights into ecosystem health and vulnerability.
- Third, services become relevant. Climate information is translated into tools that support concrete actions, from ecosystem management to adaptation planning.
- Finally, models become transferable. The methodology developed in the Maldives is designed to be adapted to other Small Island Developing States facing similar challenges.
iClimateAction is a Horizon Europe project bringing GEO, WMO and GCOS together to strengthen the Essential Climate Variables data chain from science to services. For more information, visit the iClimateAction website.
