The EcoDynamics Diagnostic Engine: A Satellite- and GIS-based Method for Assessing and Diagnosing Ecosystem Condition

A systems-based method for measuring the ecological condition of land from satellite and GIS data, with no site visit and at low cost. It extends the peer-reviewed, field-based Ecological Health Index into a weekly time series back to 2018, reports each year's peak as a Land Health Score from 1 to 9, diagnoses the limiting ecosystem process, and organises the result for nature-disclosure frameworks such as TNFD and ESRS.

The EcoDynamics Diagnostic Engine is the platform I developed; it powers ecointel.io, the company I co-founded and where I am CTO. It assesses the four primary ecosystem processes, the water cycle, the mineral cycle, energy flow and the dynamics of the living community, from public satellite and GIS data, field by field, as a weekly time series running back to 2018.

It reads vegetation cover, structure and productivity over time as a proxy for how the land is functioning, following the same surface-to-function logic that field ecologists use on the ground, and so turns a slow, costly field method into a dynamic, low-cost diagnostic. From the same reading it names the one process holding the rest back, prescribes action, and arranges the result for the nature-disclosure frameworks that now ask organisations to report on the state of nature.