Using Data to Protect Reefs: New Decision Tools for Climate Resilience in the Maldives

Coral reefs are central to the Maldives’ economy, environment, and long-term resilience. They support tourism, sustain fisheries, and provide natural protection against coastal erosion and storm surges. Yet these ecosystems face growing pressure from climate change, ocean warming, and local human activity.

A new World Bank–supported study explores how digital decision tools can help policymakers navigate these challenges more effectively by combining environmental science, economics, and data analytics into a single, transparent framework.

From monitoring to decision-making

Traditionally, reef management has relied on monitoring indicators such as coral cover, fish abundance, and water temperature. While valuable, these indicators on their own offer limited guidance on what policy actions are likely to work best, or how trade-offs between conservation and economic activity should be managed.

The study introduces a Bayesian network–based decision support tool designed to move beyond observation and towards informed policy choice. Rather than analysing variables in isolation, the model captures how ecological, climatic, and human factors interact within a complex system.

Why Bayesian networks?

Bayesian networks are particularly well suited to environmental policy challenges because they can:

• Integrate multiple data sources, including field surveys, satellite data, and socioeconomic indicators

• Represent uncertainty explicitly, rather than relying on single-point estimates

• Allow policymakers to explore “what if” scenarios, such as changes in tourism pressure or expanded marine protection

In this case, the model uses hard coral cover as a central indicator of reef health and links it to drivers such as sea surface temperature, human population density, fishing pressure, tourism activity, and marine protected area status.

Key insights from the analysis

The study confirms several widely recognised patterns while placing them into a unified analytical structure:

• Rising sea surface temperatures are associated with declining coral cover, reinforcing the vulnerability of reefs to climate change

• Local human pressures, such as proximity to settlements or resorts, interact with global stressors rather than acting independently

• Marine protected areas show positive associations with reef health, supporting their role as part of a broader management strategy

Importantly, the model does not claim to deliver definitive causal conclusions. Instead, it provides a transparent framework for examining how different factors may influence outcomes and where policy interventions are most likely to be effective.

An interactive tool for policymakers

To ensure practical usability, the model has been embedded into an interactive web-based simulator. This allows policymakers, planners, and stakeholders to test different policy scenarios and visualise potential outcomes under varying assumptions.

For example, users can explore how expanding protected areas, adjusting tourism intensity, or changing fishing controls might affect reef health over time. By making trade-offs explicit, the tool supports more deliberate and evidence-based decision-making.

Building long-term capacity

Beyond the model itself, the study outlines a vision for a national coral reef data hub. Such a platform would bring together ecological monitoring, remote sensing, and analytical tools into a single institutional resource, strengthening coordination across government agencies and supporting long-term resilience planning.

While the current tool is presented as a proof of concept, future development will focus on refining the model through stakeholder consultation, incorporating local values, and integrating it into the Maldives’ broader digital climate-resilience infrastructure.

A step towards smarter environmental policy

The challenges facing coral reefs in the Maldives are complex, and no single model can provide all the answers. However, this work demonstrates how modern data tools can help bridge the gap between science and policy, offering a structured way to evaluate options, understand trade-offs, and improve transparency in decision-making.

As climate pressures intensify, such approaches will become increasingly important — not only for environmental protection, but for safeguarding the economic foundations that depend on healthy marine ecosystems.

Source: World Bank (2025), Maldives: Decision Support for Coral Reef and Climate Resilience Using Bayesian Networks