Ridge to Reef — Visual Datos

“Ridge to reef” is an environmental planning concept — what happens inland eventually reaches the coast. Rain carries sediment. Rivers carry waste. The ocean receives everything. GIZ commissioned waste characterization visuals across three Southeast Asian sites: a tourist town, a remote UNESCO reef, and a river city whose drainage flows straight to sea.

Each location had different data, different geometry, and a different story. All three had to feel like the same document.

El Nido population chart showing census data 1940–2020 with 2025 projection already exceeded — El Nido population records from 1940–2020 — the 2025 projection was already surpassed five years early, revealing a town growing far faster than anyone planned for.

El Nido total waste breakdown by type — Total solid waste generation in El Nido — an area chart makes accumulation feel physical in a way a line chart doesn't. A waffle chart beside it makes tonnage something you can count.

El Nido tourism visitor figures 2020–2024 — Tourism visitor numbers 2020–2024 set against waste generation — the two curves track almost perfectly, showing that visitor volume is the dominant driver of waste growth.

Tubbataha Reef marine debris collection points hexbin map — Debris collection density at Tubbataha, rendered as a hexbin map — the hex grid imposes discipline, surfacing spatial patterns without overfitting individual collection events.

Tubbataha waste distribution by material type — Material composition at Tubbataha — 63% plastic containers, 12% styrofoam, and a long tail of smaller categories shown through circle packing, which communicates proportion and variety simultaneously.

Manado river systems map showing Sungai Tondano, Das Tondano, and Malalayang draining to the sea — Manado's three river systems — Sungai Tondano, Sungai Das Tondano, and Sungai Malalayang — traced from the urban interior to the coast. The pathway waste takes from street to sea made legible.

Process

Data work was done in Python — cleaning census records, waste generation logs, and geolocated debris entries. QGIS handled waterway and boundary extraction for the Manado map, pulling features from OpenStreetMap and government datasets. Final layout and typographic treatment were done in Illustrator across multiple iteration rounds (v1 → v2 → v3 → Final).

The design system is consistent across all outputs: deep black backgrounds, dark red for emphasis, off-white for data. Bold typography, minimal legend, letting data density carry the visual weight. Multiple rounds of iteration were mostly subtraction — removing axis lines, redundant labels, and chart elements that were technically correct but visually noisy.

Highlights

Hexbin map for Tubbataha surfaces spatial debris patterns without distorting individual collection hauls
Area chart and waffle chart pairing for El Nido makes waste tonnage both temporal and countable
QGIS river extraction for Manado traces the full ridge-to-reef pathway in a single readable map
Consistent black-and-red design system across three structurally different chart types
Each chart type chosen for the specific data — no template reuse across locations