Bridging the scale gap between climate and ecosystem data: Findings from the Maldives

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are on the front line of climate change but understanding exactly how a changing climate is affecting their ecosystems remains a major challenge. Climate data and ecosystem data are often collected and assessed separately, making it difficult to see how changes in temperature, rainfall or ocean conditions translate into impacts on coral reefs, mangroves and other ecosystems that island communities depend on.

This is the challenge that experts from the Maldives and international organisations recently came together to address. Over two days in Geneva, they reviewed a framework designed to link climate variables with ecosystem health, helping assess how vulnerable ecosystems are to current and future climate change. The aim is to provide SIDS with a clearer picture of how climate pressures are affecting their ecosystems — and ultimately better information to anticipate risks and strengthen resilience.

The meeting formed part of Work Package 3 of the iClimateAction project. It was convened jointly by the iClimateAction project team, (Group on Earth Observations (GEO), Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO)), as well as the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), which serves as the technical lead for the project.

Participants included representatives from five Maldivian institutions – the Ministry of Climate Change, Environment and Energy (MoCCEE), the Environmental Regulatory Authority (ERA), the Maldives Marine Research Institute (MMRI), the Maldives Meteorological Service and the Maldives National University (MNU) – alongside the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). Keeping the group small and focused made space for productive discussion, with participants critically questioning assumptions and weighing the practical implications of the proposed framework.

The framework brings together two established systems: Essential Climate Variables (ECVs), such as temperature, rainfall and sea-level, and the IUCN’s Global Ecosystem Typology (GET) Ecosystem Functional Groups (EFGs), an internationally recognised ecosystem classification standard. The intention is to identify which climate variables are most useful for understanding changes in ecosystems and which ecosystem health indicators should be monitored at the national level.

During the workshop, participants reviewed the framework and debated the right scale for its outputs – atoll level detail against national-level prioritisation. Representatives from all five Maldivian institutions set out how they use ecosystem data and where they’re constrained. A dedicated session assessed the ECV data chain itself, identifying where existing climate datasets fall short of what ecosystem applications in the Maldives need. Maldivian experts also raised practical issues, most notably a mismatch of scale: climate variables are observed and modelled globally at resolutions of 5–50 kilometres, while the Global Ecosystems Atlas Maldives National Ecosystems Map, a key input into this work, maps ecosystems at 10 metres spatial resolution. That gap matters in practice – climate data at 5–50km resolution isn't fine enough to produce reliable indicators of ecosystem degradation, yet national authorities rely on it for high-stakes decisions, including whether to proceed with development projects or where to prioritise restoration.

Closing that gap will depend on continuing to build out the Maldives' own in-country observation network, and on support from the international bodies that set global climate and ocean data standards in understanding country-level needs and reflecting them in the standards they set.

On the second day, participants applied the framework in full to a single worked example: mangroves, found across much of the Maldives' northern atolls, testing how the framework’s three components — climate hazards, ecosystem condition and adaptive capacity — come together to affect ecosystem health. The meeting provided technical and institutional feedback that will be used to revise the framework. It also helped identify priority ecosystem indicators, ecosystems at risk, available data sources, major gaps and areas where further validation is required.

The next step is to incorporate the meeting findings into the revised methodology for assessing the impact climate change has on ecosystem health in the Maldives and to other SIDS navigating similar climate and ecosystem data 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.