Spaceship Earth · A living planetary intelligence network
There’s one Earth. It’s all we’ve got. Good thing it’s extraordinary.
A resource-abundant, self-renewing world of extraordinary generative possibility. Our opportunity is to steward its natural forces as we evolve our lives, families, communities, companies, countries, and civilization.
What brings you to the reef?
0 m the cosmos
One Earth · by the numbers
- 77live data sources and counting
- 195countries
- 12,140cities worldwide with 50,000 residents or more
- 17,800towns with 500 or more residents
- 5.2 millionvillages and hamlets
Curiosity · the surface
“Wait… how does the river know where the rain went?”
The Earth is not a collection of isolated problems. It is an interconnected system of living possibilities.
Every watershed, forest, city, ecosystem, economy, and community participates in a larger cycle of regeneration — one body of water, moving.
What if we could see those relationships? Understand their patterns? Connect the data? And turn knowledge into meaningful action?
The reef grows on what it is fed
Keep the feeds alive. Add the next one.
Every live source has to be collected, checked and kept open — and every new one widens the picture. Donors are how the reef keeps growing; the knowledge stays open to everyone.
What would you like your gift to feed?
- 01 · ChoosePick what your gift feeds above.
- 02 · Tell us who you areName and email. Nothing else is collected.
- 03 · We come back with the askWhat it funds, what you’ll see, and when.
0 m the surface · swans, bees, weather
Connection · the canopy
“Everything touches everything.”
Seventeen goals. One living world.
A reef of knowledge for the future of our planet.
In collaboration with the UN Sustainable Development Goals Center, we have created Data Reef to accumulate, connect, contextualize, and tell the stories hidden within the data surrounding all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
−3 m the kelp canopy · moths, butterflies, leaves
The human factor · the storm
“We thought we were watching from the shore.”
We are not visitors to this ecosystem. We are the reef.
Every city, every pipe, every grid, every harvest is a current in the same water. What we take, we take from ourselves. What we restore, restores us. We are all part of a greater living ecosystem — we are all part of Mother Earth herself.
Data Reef measures the human factor honestly, so that we can change it.
The reef is bleached. Move across it — every polyp is one of the 17 goals, and reviving it shows you the data that proves whether we are keeping our word.
Touch a polyp to see which goal it is, and what measures it.
0 of 28 polyps · 0 of 17 goals Pick the goal you’ll move ↓
storm ash, rain, lightning · one gull
Belonging · the seabed
“I’m small. And I’m part of it.”
A planetary-scale data reef
The living data reef
From the smallest communities to the largest nations, building an interconnected picture of life on Earth. It takes many waves to form a beach. It takes many instances to calcify into a reef.
- 01PeopleIndividuals taking action
- 02CommunitiesNeighbourhoods & networks
- 03CitiesWhere most of us live
- 04RegionsWatersheds & landscapes
- 05CountriesPolicy & stewardship
- 06The biosphereOne living organism
−12 m the seabed · roots, fungi, one mosquito
Calcify · the drop-off
“A reading. A record. A reef.”
Watch data become a reef.
One reading is a mote in the water. Settled, checked and connected to the next, it hardens. Enough of them, in one place, for long enough, and something starts to live there. That is Data Reef: 77 live sources, calcifying.
a reading77 readings · 12 kinds of data
−40 m the drop-off · marine snow, the first polyp
Case study · the lagoon
“One ministry had the licence. The others had the data.”
Tonga: a reef begins with one polyp.
In 2022 the Kingdom of Tonga began building a national SDG Data Hub — a working group led by the Department of Statistics, a technical group at the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, the Prime Minister’s Office alongside. By late 2024 it was live and filling with census data, starting with Goals 1, 2 and 3.
The task force was tiny. Web GIS was new. Only one ministry held a licence. Some stakeholders were hesitant to share. That is exactly where a reef starts: one polyp, in difficult water.
Here is what Tonga’s tide pool could look like in Data Reef.
Illustrative stand-in public figures, not yet Data Reef feeds
15 January 2022
Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai erupted.
Damage: US$90.4 million — 18.5% of GDP — in a single night; 36.4% once economic losses were counted. The data that matters most arrives when it is hardest to collect. A reef that is already there keeps counting through the storm.
−6 m the lagoon · turtles, parrotfish, a reef shark
Courage · the reef
“I can help.”
From data to stewardship
We are here to help you store, manage, track, trace, and take action with global ecological data — so you can improve the virtues, qualities, experience, and lifestyle in the ecosystem of your city, your state, your region, your country, your continent, your Earth.
Your city. Your state. Your region. Your country. Your continent. Your Earth.
−30 m the reef · coral, kelp, fish
Joy · the deep, where the reef meets the stars
The future of Earth is something we make together.
Data Reef is for the researchers, innovators, governments, organizations, entrepreneurs, communities, and everyday citizens building a more intelligent and regenerative civilization.
For everyone aboard
Add your polyp to the reef.
Pick what brings you here at the top of the page, and this ask becomes yours. Or simply join: every polyp counts.
Welcome aboard Spaceship Earth.
Welcome to Data Reef.
∞ the deep · jellies, plankton, starlight