National Assessments & Reporting
Countries are increasingly called upon to assess the state of their marine biodiversity and demonstrate progress toward national and international conservation targets. OBIS provides governments, research agencies, and environmental authorities with open access to standardised occurrence data and analytical tools needed to meet these obligations, while offering a global context for interpreting national findings.
Supports: CBD NBSAPs, SDG 14, Regional Sea Conventions, KMGBF monitoring framework
Expert panel maps the world’s mesopelagic ecoregions using OBIS data — providing a spatially coherent framework for national and regional biodiversity assessments.
Producing comprehensive national marine biodiversity assessments from aggregated data
Implemented
Several countries have drawn on OBIS as a primary data source for national marine biodiversity assessments and state-of-environment reports. OBIS enables environmental agencies to construct comprehensive pictures of national marine biodiversity by aggregating records from monitoring programmes, research surveys, and institutional collections that may otherwise remain dispersed and inaccessible.
Region: Global
Challenge/issue: Marine biodiversity data relevant to national assessments is fragmented across institutions, surveys, and collection databases — making it costly and time-consuming to compile without a shared infrastructure.
Impact: More complete and credible national marine biodiversity assessments, built on aggregated data that no single institution could assemble alone.
OBIS inputs: OBIS API, national node datasets, institutional collection records
Identifying key biodiversity areas and priority habitats for national action plans
Implemented
Regional OBIS nodes have worked directly with national governments to provide the occurrence data and analytical support needed to identify key biodiversity areas, priority habitats, and threatened species for inclusion in NBSAPs submitted to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Region: Global
Challenge/issue: Countries developing NBSAPs often lack the spatial marine biodiversity data needed to identify where conservation action would have the greatest impact within national waters.
Impact: Evidence-based identification of marine key biodiversity areas and threatened species directly informing national CBD commitments and conservation priorities.
OBIS inputs: OBIS API, regional node datasets, species richness and rarity analyses
Enabling continuous national biodiversity reporting through automated data pipelines
Potential use case
Standardised links between national monitoring programmes and OBIS data flows could generate regularly updated national biodiversity indicators automatically synchronised with the global database, enabling continuous rather than periodic reporting — particularly valuable for small island states and countries with limited dedicated reporting capacity.
Region: Global, with priority in small island developing states and low-capacity countries
Challenge/issue: National biodiversity reporting is typically periodic and labour-intensive — countries with limited capacity struggle to meet reporting obligations, and data quickly becomes outdated between reporting cycles.
Impact: Continuously updated national biodiversity indicators reducing the reporting burden and improving the timeliness and completeness of international obligations.
OBIS inputs: OBIS API, standardised monitoring data feeds, national node datasets
Embedding marine biodiversity as a standard reference layer in national spatial planning
Potential use case
Providing planning authorities with direct API access to OBIS species occurrence data and derived products could make marine biodiversity a default reference layer in national coastal zone management, EIA, and blue economy planning systems, ensuring biodiversity is systematically considered in development decisions.
Region: Global
Challenge/issue: Marine biodiversity data is rarely integrated into spatial planning and EIA workflows by default, meaning development decisions are made without systematic consideration of biodiversity impacts.
Impact: Marine biodiversity routinely considered in coastal development, EIA, and blue economy planning, reducing conflicts between development and conservation at the national level.
OBIS inputs: OBIS API, species occurrence and habitat data, derived biodiversity indicators
