Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2025

Coral reefs occur in more than 100 countries and territories and whilst they cover only 0.2% of the seafloor, they support at least 25% of marine species and underpin the safety, coastal protection, wellbeing, food and economic security of hundreds of millions of people. Despite estimates stating that coral reefs are valued at providing up to US$ 9.9 trillion per year, and support one billion globally, they continue to face mounting threats. Coral reefs are among the most vulnerable ecosystems on the planet to anthropogenic pressures, including global threats from climate change and ocean acidification, and local impacts from land-based pollution such as input of nutrients and sediments from agriculture, marine pollution, and overfishing and destructive fishing practices.

Maintaining the integrity and resilience of coral reef ecosystems is essential for the wellbeing of tropical coastal communities worldwide, and a critical part of the solution for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Global Biodiversity Framework.

The Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN) is an operational network of the International Coral Reef Initiative that aims to provide the best available scientific information on the status and trends of coral reef ecosystems for their conservation and management. The GCRMN is a global network of scientists, managers and organisations that monitor the condition of coral reefs throughout the world. The GCRMN operates through 10 regional nodes.

Call for Data

The flagship products of the GCRMN are the “Status of Coral Reefs of the World” reports. Since 1995, six “Status of Coral Reefs of the World” global reports have been published by the network, with the sixth edition of the GCRMN “Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2020” report released in 2021, was the first since 2008, and the first based on the quantitative analysis of a global dataset compiled from monitoring data contributed by more than 300 members of the network. The global dataset spanned more than 40 years from 1978 to 2019 and consisted of almost 2 million observations from more than 12,000 sites in 73 reef-bearing countries around the world.

Given the urgency to conserve coral reefs and the commitments made by countries to 2030, the GCRMN is calling for coral reef monitoring data contributions for the development of its seventh “Status of Coral Reefs of the World” global report which will be released in 2026.

The report will describe the temporal trends of hard coral and algal cover (ideally at the resolution of macro algae, turf algae, and coralline algae) at the global level, providing an update of the “Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2020” report.