Ecosystem Coverage - Ocean Central
Ecosystem Coverage
Healthy ecosystems such as mangroves, coral reefs, and seagrasses are critical to ocean resilience. They provide habitats for marine life, protect coastlines against storm surges, improve water quality, and mitigate climate change—to name just a few benefits. These habitats face growing threats, from climate change to coastal development. We measure their global extent from the 1950s through today. A resilient ocean depends on restoring these ecosystems to at least 70% of their historic extent by 2050.
Explore how human activities are affecting ocean ecosystems at scale.
Explore the action wedges driving recovery.
This map shows how ocean ecosystems are distributed across the globe. It highlights where different ecosystems are currently situated, and where there are opportunities to take action to help ecosystems recover. View the different ecosystems, including mangroves, saltmarshes, coral reefs, tidal flats, seagrass, algal forests, and seamounts, across regions and climatic zones.
Explore how human activities are affecting ocean ecosystems at scale.
Explore the action wedges driving recovery.
View relevant data layers on the globe using the available map toggle in the top right of each card in the left panel.
UNEP-WCMC, WorldFish Centre, WRI, TNC (2021). Global distribution of warm-water coral reefs, compiled from multiple sources including the Millennium Coral Reef Mapping Project. Version 4.1. Includes contributions from IMaRS-USF and IRD (2005), IMaRS-USF (2005) and Spalding et al. (2001). Cambridge (UK): UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre. Data DOI: https://doi.org/10.34892/t2wk-5t34
Bunting P., Rosenqvist A., Lucas R., Rebelo L-M., Hilarides L., Thomas N., Hardy A., Itoh T., Shimada M. and Finlayson C.M. (2018). The Global Mangrove Watch – a New 2010 Global Baseline of Mangrove Extent. Remote Sensing, 2018, 10, 1669; doi: 10.3390/rs10101669
Murray, N. J. et al. Code and data supplement to “High-resolution global maps of tidal flat ecosystems from 1984 to 2019”. Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6332960 (2020).
UNEP-WCMC, Short FT (2021). Global distribution of seagrasses (version 7.1). Seventh update to the data layer used in Green and Short (2003). Cambridge (UK): UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre. Data DOI: https://doi.org/10.34892/x6r3-d211
Jayathilake D.R.M, Costello M.J. (2020). A modelled global distribution of the kelp biome. Biological Conservation. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108815
Mcowen C, Weatherdon LV, Bochove J, Sullivan E, Blyth S, Zockler C, Stanwell-Smith D, Kingston N, Martin CS, Spalding M, Fletcher S (2017). A global map of saltmarshes (v6.1). Biodiversity Data Journal 5: e11764. Paper DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.5.e11764 ; Data DOI: https://doi.org/10.34892/07vk-ws51
Yesson C, Clark MR, Taylor M, Rogers AD (2011). The global distribution of seamounts based on 30-second bathymetry data. Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers 58: 442-453. doi: 10.1016/j.dsr.2011.02.004.
Most recent ecosystem extent layers displayed. See sources for date.
