object_catalog- Discover sourced common-object categories and material IDs. For another object, call object_journey with product custom-object, an objectName and user-selected materials. Category composition is provisional; item provenance requires evidence.
object_journey- Explore a common object or custom material selection through materials, manufacture, transport, use and afterlife. Use object_catalog for product and material IDs. Category profiles are material hypotheses, not confirmed composition; bic-classic-lighter is a named manufacturer-reported product family. User-reported markings, model, location and fuel state never establish a mine, supplier, batch factory, shipment or destination. Atlas links show material-industry context. Unknown IDs return discovery choices.
atlas_locations- Search the same 87,018 source-identified location records used by the planetary atlas. Filter place (ISO alpha-3, WORLD, BC or SSI), material, lifecycle stage or name. Returns stable source keys, exact retained coordinates, memberships and bounded pagination. Counts are source records, not deduplicated physical facilities. Use atlas_operation for details and atlas_trace for incoming/outgoing sourced connections.
atlas_operation- Inspect one planetary atlas operation by its source key from atlas_locations. Returns the original detailed location, material accounts and related source identities when retained, plus directly arriving/leaving documented links. Quantities preserve their source units and years; accounts are not shipment links.
atlas_trace- Follow sourced relationships upstream, downstream or both from a source key, for one to three steps. Uses the identical graph as the map, crosses network boundaries only through exact source identity, keeps material categories and branches separate, and retains every edge’s own dates, forms, quantities and citations. A relationship neighborhood is not an end-to-end measured shipment chain; do not aggregate its masses. Bounded to 200 connections.
source_records- Discover and query acquired FAO food balances, supply–use and bilateral trade, JODI gas, OWID energy, BACI trade, UN regional footprints, OECD/Eurostat material accounts and EPA handler records. Empty arguments list datasets. Select dataset and country, then native dimensions or year. Units, source flags, row lineage and missing values are retained; overlapping accounts are never summed.
mineral_production- Read 2025 USGS estimates for copper, aluminium, lithium, steel, silicon and salt by country and process. World total is separately rounded; no shipment relationship is inferred.
industrial_capacity- Read Global Energy Monitor 2026 country-level operating cement/clinker or crude-steel capacity and plant counts. Capacity is not actual output or a traced material flow.
glass_program- Read three separate BC glass programs for 2025. Deposit beverage glass includes reported units, estimated weight, 28 regional entries and described end uses. Dairy refillables are separately reported and unaudited. Non-deposit packaging provides only end-market geography. Regional returns do not trace shipments.
source_observatory- Find researched candidate data sources and retained EIA coal and BC glass records. Status explicitly distinguishes imported observations from identified sources with no retained rows. Filter by material or acquisition status.
estimate_production_gap- Estimate one missing FAO annual product value between two reported numeric years no more than three years apart. Returns both original rows, source flags, formula and unit; no extrapolation or stored replacement. Missing facility links cannot be interpolated.
waste_catalog- Discover 123 source-separated waste series, units, years, country coverage and primary provenance. Filter by waste stream or ISO alpha-3 country. Aggregates and overlapping treatment categories must not be added.
waste_history- Read municipal, packaging, e-waste, hazardous or food-waste observations. Discover series IDs with waste_catalog. Returns source flags, raw values and units, conversion factors, observation basis, years and provenance. No gap filling; bounded pagination.
waste_collection- Search UN SDG city collection observations by city, country and source year. Latest means latest available per source city ID; it does not mean current. Keeps source definitions, basis and notes. Collection coverage is not a recycling rate or proof of controlled disposal.
waste_compare- Compare up to four retained World Bank country or city records, or search the register by level and country. Returns nulls, field-level source dates, definitions and links to complete source references. Do not rank performance across inconsistent years or boundaries.
connections- Discover 189 U.S. mine-to-power-plant networks with measured 2025 receipts, plus curated operator-reported material links. The index lists all matching network IDs; detail is paginated unless a network ID is supplied. Filter by material and country. Mine and plant points use official inventories; straight joining lines are schematic, never a surveyed corridor.
coal_receipts- Query 6,545 identified-mine monthly coal delivery rows reported in final 2025 EIA-923. Filter by plant ID, MSHA mine ID and month; paginate. Short tons delivered are observed reports, with no interpolation or claim of a later electricity destination.
ports- Search the global IMF PortWatch port register by country, name or UN/LOCODE. Returns source coordinates, IDs, provenance, available monthly periods and the historical World Bank shipping-density layer. No live vessel positions or commodity shipment links.
port_activity- Read monthly port visits by vessel class and modeled cargo tonnes for a source port ID, September 2025–August 2026. Day counts expose incomplete periods. Visits are not unique ships; cargo estimates are not customs weights. Source methods, attribution and limitations included.
journey- Discover material-lifecycle map layers or query one stage by material and country. Returns source-preserved facility records and explicit coverage gaps. Independent inventories are not a verified end-to-end shipment chain. General waste layers are contextual.
research_path- Plan a material investigation for any country or the BC regional case. Returns stage coverage, exact next tool calls, source methods and honest gaps. The BC glass case distinguishes unknown upstream origin from Recycle BC’s measured 2025 end-market geography.
trade- Select source baci for reconciled 2024 worldwide bilateral trade across 22 retained HS4 forms, with every contributing HS6 source-row locator. Omit commodity to discover forms. Source reports (default) queries reviewed bilateral exports for 2024, with original net weight, HS revision, estimation flags and source row references. Use country WORLD or an ISO alpha-3 code, direction in/out and an optional HS4 commodity. Omit commodity to discover available products. Oil uses partner import declarations only when an outgoing origin/product/year lacks retained exports; incoming oil prefers own imports. Never combines both reporting sides for a group. Other incoming records are partners’ export declarations. Selected coverage; bounded pagination; no interpolation or global extrapolation.
production_catalog- Discover FAO production products, native units, available years, definitions, flags and source provenance for food, wood, paper or natural textile inputs. Products can overlap; never sum parent and child categories.
production- Read source-preserved FAO product history, 1970–2024, for an ISO alpha-3 country or source world total WORLD. Discover item IDs with production_catalog. Preserves observations, estimates, imputation flags, native units, original CSV row and nulls; applies no interpolation.
environment- Discover NASA GIBS satellite, land/ocean relief, NDVI vegetation and ocean chlorophyll layers. Returns verified dates, source resolutions, legends, tile templates and optional bounding-box image URL. These are visualizations, not extracted numerical measurements or plastic-detection products.
coverage- Discover material-world datasets, countries, measures, coverage and source licenses. Country is ISO alpha-3. Coverage counts are source records, not unique facility counts.
local_context- Locate source-mapped facilities within a chosen radius worldwide. Returns nearby record counts and coordinates separately from country-level extraction. Geography is a simplified boundary; no local tonnage is inferred. Includes source links and measurement bases.
facilities- Search facility records within a dataset worldwide (country WORLD) or in an ISO alpha-3 country. Source, type and geographic filters are supported. kind landfill includes waste and recycling infrastructure. UNASSIGNED contains outfalls without a country in the source. Returns provenance, measurement basis, nulls, bounded pagination and coverage. Bbox is [west,south,east,north]; west > east crosses the date line.
facility- Get a complete facility record, original source fields, coordinates, measurement basis, source citation and shareable page URL.
energy- Read national annual EIA or monthly JODI fossil-fuel observations. Discover measure IDs with coverage. Original values, flags, units and conversions are retained. Country totals do not identify facilities or bilateral routes.
waste- Read a World Bank municipal-waste record with observation-level references, dates, definitions and workbook lineage. Use ISO alpha-3 for countries or a retained city ID.
material_accounts- Read UNEP International Resource Panel national material accounts, 1970–2024. Returns physical mass, population, per-capita quantities, modeled footprint and estimation flags.
estimate_energy_gap- Explicitly estimate one missing annual energy value by linear interpolation between two same-series observations at most three years apart. Never extrapolates or overwrites data. Returns formula, both inputs and assumption; does not claim statistical uncertainty.
A planetary atlas of material flows