TerraViso Ecological Intelligence

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• Woodland, grassland, scrub, wetlands and hedgerows do not function independently.

• Their ecological role can be influenced by their size, condition, location, surrounding habitats and their relationship with the wider landscape.

• Two apparently similar habitat patches may therefore play very different roles.

• One may form part of a strong ecological network. Another may be isolated.

• One may help connect larger areas of habitat. Another may sit where a relatively small intervention could reconnect a fragmented landscape.

• TerraViso is designed to help reveal these differences.

• Traditional habitat mapping necessarily divides landscapes into identifiable spatial features.

• TerraViso retains that essential habitat information but uses it as the starting point for wider analysis.

• Ecological Intelligence can examine:

• How habitats are connected across the landscape and where important links may exist.

• Where habitat networks have become separated, constrained or interrupted.

• What surrounds a habitat and how its position within the wider landscape may influence its ecological role.

• How neighbouring and related habitats contribute to broader ecological structure.

• Spatial relationships that become visible when habitats are considered together rather than independently.

The result is not another classification of the landscape. It is another way of understanding it.

• Two habitats being close together does not necessarily mean they are well connected.

• The landscape between them matters.

• Hedgerows, woodland edges, riparian vegetation, field margins, scrub and other habitat features can contribute to ecological networks, while roads, intensive land uses, development or gaps in habitat may weaken them.

• TerraViso examines connectivity in the context of the landscape rather than treating it simply as the distance between two mapped features.

• This can help reveal where networks are strong, where they are vulnerable and where relatively small changes might strengthen connections across a much larger area.

• Individual habitats can contribute to ecological systems operating at scales much larger than the habitat itself.

• TerraViso can examine how patches, corridors, edges and neighbouring habitats combine to form wider landscape networks.

This helps shift the focus from....

What is this polygon?

towards questions such as....

What role does it play?

What does it connect?

What depends on it?

What happens to the wider network if it changes?

• Understanding the existing network is only part of the question.

• Once areas of connectivity, fragmentation and ecological importance can be examined together, it becomes possible to explore where intervention could potentially have the greatest landscape-scale effect.

• That might mean strengthening an existing corridor, reconnecting isolated habitat, extending an important habitat patch, improving a riparian network or identifying locations where habitat creation could connect previously separated areas.

The objective is not simply to ask.....

Where could habitat be created?

but....

Where could change make the greatest ecological difference?

•   There is rarely only one possible intervention.

• Different combinations of habitat creation, restoration or management can produce different patterns across the landscape.

• TerraViso is being developed to help explore those alternatives and understand how potential interventions may influence connectivity and wider ecological structure before decisions are made on the ground.

• This creates a bridge between ecological analysis and nature recovery planning.

•  Ecological Intelligence is intended to support professional judgement, not replace it.

• Spatial analysis can identify patterns, relationships and areas that warrant closer investigation. It cannot determine ecological significance without context.

• TerraViso therefore provides evidence that ecologists, conservation professionals, planners and land managers can interrogate alongside field knowledge, survey evidence and professional expertise.

• The purpose is to make difficult landscape questions easier to investigate — not to pretend they have simple automated answers.